Movies
UPDATED: Lawsuit Stops ‘Crow’ Remake From Taking Flight?
As if the franchise wasn’t already tainted with the untimely death of an actor and the lingering stench of Edward Furlong’s post-American History X career desperation, it now appears that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s remake of The Crow might not be soaring onto screens anytime soon.
The Weinstein Company is bringing Relativity Media to court over a distribution dispute, claiming that they have “a written contract signed by everybody” that gives the Weinsteins worldwide rights to the film (they distributed the original through Miramax in 1994). Their side of the story is that Relativity head honcho Ryan Kavanaugh is shopping around rights to other parties, though Kavanaugh has yet to respond as of this writing.
I’d like to think that the two companies can work it out, though we’re talking about two mega-producers with inflated egos that are no strangers to lawsuits. With a director and potential star in place, this is the perfect time for the Weinsteins to step in and raise hell; they just want a piece of the pie. Relativity has had way too much momentum as of late to let this project go by the wayside. Of course, stranger things have happened.
As of now, The Crow is still scheduled to shoot in the fall for a 2012 release.
UPDATED
Relativity has responded to the Weinsteins and their rep, Bert Fields, claiming that this is “yet another typical litigation stunt from the Weinsteins who have a long history of threatening law suits with the sole purpose of intimidation.” Kavanaugh and Co. plan on seeking a dismissal if served, dismissing the claim as a “feeble attempt to create a press stir and a malicious effort to interfere with Relativity’s development of the project.”
The rebuttal at least addresses the real issue at hand. The Weinsteins technically can’t stop Relativity from making the film, but if they cause enough of a stink with this distribution mess, people might back out because they don’t want to be associated with it.
We’ll see how long this gets dragged out for.
Described as “Ted meets ET,” David Mikalson’s raunchy comedy Goblin is being brought to life over at A24, and Will Forte (“The Four Seasons”) is now in talks to star.
Deadline first reported the news this afternoon.
Kenneth Branagh has been cast to voice the titular Goblin in the upcoming A24 movie, with the character said to be “green-colored” as well as “anatomically correct.”
Skyler Gisondo (Superman) is reportedly playing the Goblin’s human best friend.
The mysterious project sounds a bit like films including A Gnome Named Gnorm and more recently, Frankie Freako, though it’s important to note that it’s not billed as a horror movie.
Deadline details, “After [Mikalson] hatched the idea to make an outrageous buddy comedy about a goblin, using a practical puppet and operating outside the Hollywood system, his script quickly got him a rep team. While others might have eyed the raunchy comedy as a writing sample or planned to wait to see the micro-budget version Mikalson has been directing in Kentucky, A24 jumped all over it. The hot indie essentially has agreed to finance a full feature.”
“There was a lot of interest, but A24 came with what Mikalson really wanted, after spending all his money crafting the puppet title character: they acquired the movie and agreed to let him make it with a significantly increased budget than what he had left after creating the anatomically correct title character,” Deadline’s report goes on to explain.
What does the titular Goblin actually look like? Well, a cake that Mikalson had whipped up for his reps might give us our first look at what to expect. Deadline explains the photo you’ll see down below, “Take a look at the cake he commissioned with Marc Gravelle at Cake Art in West Hollywood, to present to his reps as thanks for making his dream come true.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.