The Weinstein Shuffle
In the wake of John Hillcoat’s The Road officially getting bumped to 2009, the LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein spoke with Harvey Weinstein about the juggling going on with a number of his other films. Speculation is that The Weinstein Co. is low on money, but Harvey has a rational answer for each move.
- Fanboys. The story of a group of Star Wars fanatics traveling across country to get an early peek at Star Wars: Episode I with their dying friend is moving to January to accommodate a major advertising tie-in with Comcast. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see if disappointment over the prequel kills the guy or not.
- Crossing Over. The immigration drama and potential Oscar candidate starring Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta and Sean Penn was once set for October. Now it’s bumped to January because the year-end calendar is “just too crowded.”
- Killshot. John Madden’s adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel starring Mickey Rourke is moving closer to the Oscar telecast to capitalize on the buzz around Rourke’s potential Oscar nomination for The Wrestler.
- Shanghai. The period political drama starring John Cusack, Gong Li and Ken Watanabe simply isn’t finished yet.
Truth or spin: does it matter?
Filed under: News, Release Dates
Tags: Crossing Over, Fanboys, Gong Li, Harrison Ford, John Cusack, John Hillcoat, John Madden, Ken Watanabe, Killshot, Mickey Rourke, Ray Liotta, Sean Penn, Shanghai, The Road
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Am I the only one who it feels like there are NO movies coming out in the next two months?
With THE SOLOIST, THE ROAD, FANBOYS, HARRY POTTER, et cetera being pushed to ‘09 and GRAN TORINO unlikely to hit LA until after the New Year, what do we have to look forward to?
Sure, there’s enough to sustain, but it feels like there ain’t much compared to years prior in terms of quantity, at least. Hopefully some unexpected stuff plugs itself into the release schedule.
Welcome, Danny, to my world.
I hate the fact that I missed the ‘Fanboys’ press screening back in August here. Damn it. But Killshot is screened here next week, not sure if I want to go since its been getting such lame ass reviews. I’ll probably skip it.
It feels like Crossing Over has been bumped over too many times to count. Don’t have a good feeling about that one.
Danny, I agree, this year’s autumn schedule seems to become a little paler with each passing week, but there are still some very worthwhile films out now, such as Ballast.
At this time, I’m looking forward to Rachel Getting Married, Quantum of Solace, Doubt, Gran Torino and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button the most, in about that order.
2007 was such a tremendous year, though, partly because a couple of great films were held back, and perhaps 2009 will benefit from 2008’s losses. (I say with measured hopefulness.)
Odd that no one has brought this up, but could part of this be a combination of a slowing economy and a weaker slate of releases down the road due to all the labor contract issues in Hollywood? Hollywood had two long periods in 2008 where new projects essentially came to a halt. At the time, the studios were simply halting new production until they knew if they’d have talent to work on anything. Now we have the economy entering a recession.
That lack of projects wouldn’t affect the short-term, but the studios could spread existing movies out to make up the difference without taking on a lot of new, fast-tracked projects. Spreading the movies out actually makes sense to me. There’s simply too much coming out right now (again) to keep up with.
I could be reading too much into it, but if I were programming movies for the next 18 months I’d be seriously concerned about ticket sales versus available product right now.
All very accurate points, Joel. The doubtless respective impacts of the potential SAG strike earlier this year and the worsening economic climate have certainly left their marks on Hollywood.
Joel, yeah…I think especially on the part of Paramount they looked at next year’s schedule and didn’t have enough to fill it and that could have a lot do with the work stoppage/slowages.
As for the rest of the season Danny, having just dined on Synecdoche, all I need is Che and Benjamin Button and that’s a full meal for me. Anything else (Revolutionary Road, Doubt, The Reader,Gran Torino) is gravy.
I now see that somehow I accidentally deleted Synecdoche, New York in my #3 post here, which is currently my most anticipated film. Just for clarification.
Year end calendar is “too crowded”? Psh-shaw, I say. Everyone and their mom is vacating - there’s hardly anything left!
Perhaps this is Daniel Gethun’s movie off-season in the making!
The big Oscar dogs may have been spread a little thinner, boys, but there’s still a veritable buttload of films hitting every weekend through the end of the year.
And honestly, I’m fine with that. Spread out the meat a little bit. No reason why Jan-March should be a dead zone of new releases.
Exactly.
Alexander: I agree with you 100% on 2009 benefiting from 2008’s losses. It’s rare to have a great summer slate (like we had this year) followed right up by a great fall one (although the remaining films do look excellent). From where it stands now, 2009 could be like 1999 (another year that benefited from some labor stoppages in previous years) and give us the best fall season yet.
Just for the heck of it, what is/are everyone’s favorite film year(s) from this decade so far?
For me it has to be 2003 (ROTK, Mystic River, Master and Commander, Last Samurai, and X2–the movie that convinced me superhero films could have substance) and maybe 2007 (Zodiac, Bourn Ultimatum, Sweeney Todd, TWBB, NCFOM, Atonement, Into the Wild). 2005 had some goodies as well (Munich, Walk The Line, Syriana, Good Night & Good Luck).
2002 was by far my favorite in the last decade, although it’s possible that’s because it was only the second year I watched 50+ movies and my tastes were a little less refined and lax.
But, sheesh, does it seem good in retrospect; I had 19 four-out-of-four star ratings: THE PIANIST, FAR FROM HEAVEN, CHICAGO, 25TH HOUR, 8 WOMEN, THE HOURS, LOTR: THE TWO TOWERS, MINORITY REPORT, FRAILTY, ADAPTATION, 13 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING, ABOUT A BOY, THE GREY ZONE, FRIDA, SPIRITED AWAY, ROAD TO PERDITION, MOONLIGHT MILE, ONE HOUR PHOTO, SIGNS….
Ooooh, such a good year… Although I’m sure I would rate some of those lower if I were to watch ‘em again today…
I didn’t think I liked 2007 that much when it was over, but now that I’m looking at this year’s line-up and not seeing anything already-on-the-radar like INTO THE WILD, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, AMERICAN GANGSTER, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, and JUNO had been (and delivered upon arrival), it’s looking better and better in retrospect…
2002, 2005 and 2007 are my favorite American film years of this decade.
Regarding CROSSING OVER being bumped so many times - the film was never going to be ready in time for an ‘07 release, and it’s always been Weinstein Company policy to arbitrarily announce some bullshit release date and just throw it out there and when the film isn’t finished, they just change it to some other arbitrary date which they almost never meet. I hear from my sources that CROSSING OVER has only just been delivered to the studio - and it’s really good and no one can understand why Harvey has passed it over for 08 awards recognition. The only reason anyone can come up with is that he’s out of cash and only has enough money to promote THE READER. If he channels CROSSING OVER through the Sundance and Berlin festivals next year, he gets tons of free publicity for it. But don’t believe the shit you read in the media about release dates. They mean nothing.
I don’t really have a favourite year, since I have only been following film properly for a couple of years, and before that I pretty much just spent my time catching up with whatever, so I have a lot of favourites from a lot of years. If that makes sense.
Thanks for stopping by Harry. Looking at recent history, I’d say you’re right about TWC.
I tend to pass along release dates with an uncritical eye, but with the knowledge that things always change for one reason or another. I find it interesting that Harvey has a ready, innocent seeming excuse for each delay.
As for my favorite movie year…up until recently I’ve been so focused on movie history, I tended to ignore the movie present and I don’t think in terms of good years and bad years. I’d have to sit down and think about it.