FAQ

John was contracted to do two movies. He was already filming the second movie when he saw an early cut of this movie and it was different than what he expected after filming and only finished it because of the contract and has disavowed both movies.

The most recent wikipedia entry however for Better Off Dead seems to show that Cusack has retracted his bad opinion of at least this film.

He didn't personally or specifically want the money from Lane. He was collecting for the paper route. In those days, the paperboy came around to your house to collect the subscription fee for the month. At [35:00] Lane was just unfortunate enough to answer the door, and the dialog between Lane Meyer & Johnny Gasparini explains it all. A real paperboy would have returned to the house, not hound the person like that but this was just done for comic effect. The writer/director Savage Steve Holland has said that this is from his personal experience. Both of his parents worked when he was in high school. When the paper boy showed up at 4:00 o'clock and asked for two dollars, he told him his parents weren't home and he didn't have two dollars, so come back at 6:00 o'clock. The paper boy would come back 15 minutes later and ask for two dollars and he again had to tell him to come back at 6:00 when his parents would be home. This happened repeatedly.