weinstein brothers Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In news that is equally rumored and dreaded, it looks like the Weinsteins' haste to get The Reader in the running for this year's awards season might be a matter of John Hillcoat's anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's acclaimed novel, The Road, not being ready for its limited release a month from now, let alone year's end.

It's bad enough that neither film was ready for any of the big fall film festivals, but a good friend told me something similar three days ago, and now, Kristopher Tapley at In Contention and Dave Karger's EW Oscar Watch are talking along the same lines. I can't say that I'm the same William who posted the following reaction on Karger's page -- and I quote: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" -- but my own sentiments on the (possible) move aren't all that far off.

For that matter, my feelings on the novel and film themselves are akin to those of our own Eugene Novikov: that the book is merely Damn Good, but could make for a Great movie. We may not have a poster, or a trailer, or a fully functioning website just yet, but for all the Weinsteins' release date shell games, I can't help but think they have more to lose holding off on this than The Reader, which producer Scott Rudin took his name off after it was bumped up to contend with star Kate Winslet's other awards prospect, Revolutionary Road (itself based on an acclaimed novel).

I mean, I'm not exactly wishing that The Reader is Winslet's next All the King's Men or anything, but is this studio not big enough for the both of them? Or is this year merely not long enough?

It has been deathly quiet on the Fanboys front, which suggests that no one would see this movie if the Weinstein Co. paid them to. Well, that's probably an overstatement, but it certainly is a dead horse.

Then again, there might be a flutter of life. According to the New York Times, the Weinstein Co. have brought original director Kyle Newman back to create a final cut of the film. "I have been brought back into the editing room to work on a final version," Newman told the Times. "All the key people are back. That's all good."

Of course, there is still no news on a release date, nor whether it will ever be put into theatres or merely relegated to direct-to-DVD. (We also don't know which storyline will be kept in; the cancer one, or the non-cancer one.) It's rather interesting that the Weinstein Co. conceded to the fan backlash -- the backlash they said didn't really exist. If they can appease those petition signers and protest stagers, could they actually turn a profit on this film?

Just a few weeks after the ugly Crash producer debacle went public, another best picture-winning film is finding itself in court. According to Martin Richards, founder of The Producer Circle Company, Miramax is screwing him out of $10 million (give or take a few million) of profits that his co-producer credit for Chicago should have earned. In his lawsuit, Richards claims that his company owned the movie rights to the musical, and that co-producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein have refused to pay him the percentage he is owed. The core of Richard's suit is his claim that, though his contract terms guaranteed him a percentage of gross profits (figured before expenses are taken out), the Weinsteins are trying to pay him based on net profits (with expenses taken out - obviously a much smaller figure). So far, Richards claims he has been paid only $500,000 ("$300,00 as a producing fee and $200,000 when the movie passed its 'first cash break even level'").

Looking for a The Lord of the Rings of their very own, the Weinstein brothers have acquired the rights to a series of five martial arts novels by Wang Du Lu. Collectively known as the Crane-Iron Pentalogy, the books gained exposure to a world-wide audience (though that audience probably didn't know it at the time) when the fourth in the series was used as the source for Ang Lee's wildly successful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The planned movies - the most exciting of which will inevitably be Precious Sword, Golden Hairpin - will function as prequels and a sequel to Lee's film.

In addition to crowing about how these upcoming marital arts films are "an opportunity to do something revolutionary" (What that means is anyone's guess - cast Asian actors in Hollywood? Make a movie with the word "hairpin" in the title?), the Weinsteins also announced tentative plans to create a stage version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yikes. Why do I immediately think of Andrew Lloyd Webber and a completely inappropriate emphasis on visual effects?