A John Candy documentary gives Toronto film fest a tender and appropriately Canadian opening night

TORONTO (AP) — “I wish I had more bad things to say about him,” Bill Murray says in the opening moments of the documentary “John Candy: I Like Me.”

It has always been hard to find a negative word about Candy. The great Canadian comedian and actor not only radiated a warm, down-to-earth friendliness in movies like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Uncle Buck” and “The Great Outdoors,” he was that way off screen, too. As Mel Brooks says in the film, “He was a total actor because he was a total person.”

“John Candy: I Like Me,” directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds, is a tribute not just to Candy the actor, but Candy, the man. On Thursday night, it premieres as the opening night film of the Toronto International Film Festival. For a beloved Canadian icon like Candy, whose nickname was “Johnny Toronto,” the setting could hardly be more fitting. To reference Candy’s cameo in “The Blues Brothers,” it’s an occasion that calls for orange whips, all around.

“I can’t tell you the amount of meetings we had about when the movie can be made, and maybe we can do this festival or that,” Hanks says. “And I just kept thinking in the back of my mind: Well, this is a gigantic waste of time. It should just be at Toronto. Period. The End.”

“John Candy: I Like Me,” which will debut on Prime Video on Oct. 10, is a kind of cinematic eulogy for Candy, who died of heart failure at the age of 43 in 1994. Long ago as that was, “I Like Me” is the first feature documentary to tackle Candy, who might be even more popular three decades after his death.

“Part of me hates the fact that John maybe never really saw how beloved he was,” Reynolds says. “He left something really lasting. He died of a heart failure and ironically the thing he left behind was his heart. That’s the thing that stays.”

Hanks, Reynolds and Candy’s children, Jennifer and Chris Candy, spoke in interviews before the TIFF opening about the making of “John Candy: I Like Me,” the title of which comes from one of Candy’s most memorable lines from “Trains, Planes and Automobiles.” But it also serves as a guiding ethos to the documentary.

Candy, who grew up in working-class Ontario and whose father also died young, had his own long-range struggles with that loss. He also, through a people-pleasing smile, dealt with the sometimes insensitive way his size was discussed in the media. Says Reynolds: “He was self-effacing his work, but not self-loathing. He didn’t make a sport of punching down, not even on himself.”

“He left, but he did leave us some tools to get through this,” says Chris Candy, 40, speaking alongside his 45-year-old sister. “That would be through the way he raised us and also saying it’s OK to talk to someone if you have heavy feelings.”

For the Candys, “I Like Me” is an extremely emotional experience but one they’re grateful for. They have each navigated their own way through an upbringing marked by their father’s loss. It was years before Chris could visit his father’s grave site or rewatch his movies. Once he did, he was astonished at his father’s talent.

For Jennifer, her father's movies helped carry her through grief.

“I jumped in and watched everything. All through college, I made sure I had the whole DVD collection,” she says. “For me that was a constant reminder to hear his voice. We had cassette tapes of his ‘Radio Kandy’ show that I would just listen to all the time in the car during high school.”

Hanks, whose directorial work includes the 2015 documentary “All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records,” wanted to find a thread for the film that went beyond tribute. To him, the movie is about drilling down on what gave Candy such an everyman quality. What made him, to millions, like their Uncle Buck. Hanks experienced Candy's effect firsthand as a child visiting his father, Tom Hanks, on the set of “Splash.”

“I have vivid memories of visiting on set. He was just one of my parents’ friends, someone they worked with,” says Hanks. “He had a way, even as a kid, of making you feel incredibly important.”

“I had been on the periphery of the most intense fame you can have, as well as a much smaller version myself,” adds Hanks. “It is an adjustment. It is hard to navigate. Not that it’s not amazing and great, but that idea of how much you can actually give of yourself to people.”

Reynolds, born and raised in Vancouver, has been a fan of Candy’s since growing up watching “SCTV” reruns. His fondness for Candy, in many ways, has been an influence throughout his career.

“I feel like in the bigger movies I’m always either Del Griffith or Neil Page, from “Planes, Trains,” says Reynolds. “I tend to really fluctuate back and forth between those guys.”

As his own fame grew, alongside with his ability to take some authorship of his films, Reynolds has populated his movies with references to Candy. Easter eggs adorn the “Deadpool” films. In one moment, he utters the “I like me,” albeit in a much different context. Reynolds had the prop department make a mug with the same quote. A Chrysler LeBaron appears in the background of another scene. He even licensed the book “The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains” so it could make a cameo in all the “Deadpool” movies.

“I like having him around,” says Reynolds. “I feel safer. I feel better. I also feel maybe just a skosh more honest.”

“John was a good person when nobody was watching, and I think that’s an increasingly scarce resource these days, in an age where everything is not only seen, it’s perfection,” Reynolds adds. “It’s like an epidemic. All we see is perfection and curation. Nobody wants to try anything new because nobody’s willing to suck at anything.”

For Jennifer and Chris, “John Candy: I Like Me,” awash in memories of their father,” is a kind of time capsule that, like their dad's other movies and radio show recordings, will be long treasured.

“I’m fortunate that I will always have this,” says Chris. “And I love it for that.”

Jennifer Candy-Sullivan, from left, Ryan Reynolds, Rosemary Margaret Hobor, Chris Candy, and director Colin Hanks attend the premiere of "John Candy: I Like Me" during the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Ryan Reynolds attends the premiere of "John Candy: I Like Me" during the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Producer Ryan Reynolds and director Colin Hanks drive in a replica prop car from the movie "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" prior to the premiere of "John Candy: I Like Me" at the Toronto International Film Festival, in Toronto on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press via AP)

Colin Hanks, right, director of the documentary film "John Candy: I Like Me," poses for a portrait with producer Ryan Reynolds in front of a photograph of Second City comedy performers including John Candy, far left, to promote the film during the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Toronto. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Chris Candy, left, and Jennifer Candy-Sullivan, the children of the late John Candy, pose in front of a photograph of The Second City comedy performers including their father, far left, to promote the documentary film "John Candy: I Like Me" during the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Toronto. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Colin Hanks, left, director of the documentary film "John Candy: I Like Me," poses with producer Ryan Reynolds for a portrait at The Second City comedy club to promote the film during the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Toronto. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Director Colin Hanks, producer Ryan Reynolds, and John Candy's children Jennifer and Christopher Candy pose for a photo at a press conference for the film John Candy: I Like Me, prior to the film's premiere, at the Toronto International Film Festival, in Toronto on Thursday, September 4, 2025. (Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press via AP)

Colin Hanks, right, director of the documentary film "John Candy: I Like Me," poses with producer Ryan Reynolds for a portrait to promote the film during the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Toronto. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

TENERIFE, Spain (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization sought Saturday to reassure residents of the Spanish island where passengers of a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship are expected to be evacuated, issuing them a direct message that the virus was “not another COVID.”

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, with more than 140 passengers and crew on board, is headed to Spain's Canary Islands, off the coast of West Africa, and is expected to arrive at the island of Tenerife early Sunday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spain’s Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, were due on the island Saturday to coordinate the disembarkation of passengers and some crew.

“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” Tedros said in a message to the people of Tenerife.

“But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now,” Tedros added.

The WHO, Spanish authorities and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said nobody on the Hondius is currently showing symptoms of the virus.

Hantavirus can cause life-threatening illness. It usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus.

Some on Tenerife say they are worried. On board the cruise ship, some Spanish passengers have voiced concern about being stigmatized.

“I tell you, I don’t like this very much,” said 69-year-old resident Simon Vidal. “Anyone can say what they want. Why did they have to bring a boat from another country here? Why not anywhere else, why bring it to the Canary Islands?”

Others said they empathized with the boat's passengers, but were still concerned.

“The truth is that it is very worrying,” said 27-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Samantha Aguero. She added: “We feel a bit unsafe, we don’t feel as there are 100% security measures in place to welcome it. This is a virus after all and we have lived this during the pandemic. But we also need to have empathy.”

Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said passengers and some crew would disembark in Tenerife “under maximum safety conditions.”

The ship will not dock but will remain at anchor. Everyone disembarking will be checked for symptoms and won't be taken off the ship until a flight is already in Tenerife waiting to fly them off the island, Garcia said during a news conference in Madrid. There are currently people of more than 20 different nationalities on board.

Both the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens. Americans are to be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska.

All Spanish passengers will be transferred to a medical facility and quarantined, Garcia said. Oceanwide has listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.

Those disembarking will leave behind their luggage, Garcia said, and will be allowed to take only a small bag with essential items, a cellphone, charger and documentation.

Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to the Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, the minister added.

According to a letter sent by the Dutch foreign and health ministers to parliament late Friday, Spain has activated the EU civil protection mechanism for a medical evacuation plane equipped for infections diseases to be on standby in case anyone on the ship becomes ill. That person would then be transported by air to the European mainland.

The Dutch government will work with Spanish authorities and the ship company to arrange repatriation of Dutch passengers and crew as soon as possible after arrival in Tenerife, subject to medical conditions and advice from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the letter said. Those without symptoms will go into home quarantine for six weeks and be monitored by local health services.

As the ship is Dutch-flagged, the Netherlands may also temporarily accommodate people of other nationalities and monitor them in quarantine, it said.

Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who disembarked before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator have said.

It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.

Dutch public health authorities have been monitoring people who were on a flight that was briefly boarded by a Dutch ship passenger who later died and was confirmed to have hantavirus. Three people who were on the flight and had symptoms have all tested negative for hantavirus, Dutch National Institute for Public Health spokesperson Harald Wychgel told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Becatoros reported from Sparta, Greece. Associated Press reporters Angela Charlton in Paris and Helena Alves in Tenerife contributed to this report.

A Spanish Civil Guard officer inspects the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Media crew members stand in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Workers set up temporary shelters in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Passengers on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, scan the horizon with binoculars during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)

Passengers on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, watch epidemiologists board the boat in Praia, during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)

A passenger checks his camera inside his cabin on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)

Crew members of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, wait their turns for a first interview with epidemiologists, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)

A passenger on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, takes a photo of the ship's weighing anchor in Praia, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)