"THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB" was on its way to becoming a motion picture. The next step was finding the right director for the film. "We wanted to find somebody who was funny," recalls Startz, "someone who had heart and who could really enjoy working on the movie. Someone who could relate to the material and the girls and bring out what was special and unique about them. We screened some "thirtysomething" episodes that Melanie had directed, and there was a real range in her ability. What really sold me was a piece she had done for "Tribeca," starring her, written and directed by her, about her and her grandmother. I thought that the relationship was so warm and so real and moving, told in a very funny way, that she was the right person for the job."
"We all wanted the movie to have humor and kind of a wacky quality and a little bit of zaniness to it and we felt that was very much reflected in the work Melanie had done," adds Abraham. "She also expressed as much passion as any director I've ever met who wanted to do something."
Director Melanie Mayron recalls some of her motivations for wanting to direct the film. "There was this "New York Times Magazine" a few years ago and I remember xeroxing it. On the cover was written 'Confident at 11, Confused at 16' and it was this whole study of girls between the ages of 11 and 16 and it just blew my mind. Because girls start out ahead of boys, and they mature ahead of boys and then, around puberty they get some weird idea from society that boys should know more and they have to make themselves less.
"'THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB' takes place before all that stuff hits," Mayron continues, "so each of these girls are the personalities that they will rediscover when they're 42 years old. They'll lose it for a good 30 years before they find themselves again. I really wanted to make a wonderful film that was about that time in our lives when we're 12 and 13, like a female "Stand By Me." I thought, 'If I can turn it into that, that will be something wonderful to have done."'
http://hollywood.com/movies/baby/text/aboutthe2.html (Einblicke ins Internet, 10/1995)
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