Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy

Filed under: Horror, Thrillers, Lionsgate Films, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Movie Marketing, Interviews

Earlier this afternoon I had a chance to speak with Courtney Solomon from After Dark Films. A filmmaker himself (he directed An American Haunting and the 2000 flick Dungeons & Dragons), Courtney is now a partner over at After Dark Films. A company that has a multi-picture deal with Lionsgate; these are the same folks who were also responsible for marketing the upcoming horror flick Captivity. And we all know what happened there. Back in March, a bunch of controversial billboards for Captivity began popping up all over New York and Los Angeles; billboards, mind you, that were not approved by the MPAA. Hence, the MPAA suspended the film's ratings process and slapped After Dark Films with an unprecedented sanction, forcing the company to clear all venues and locations of its ad buys with the MPAA.

Since then, the film's release date has been pushed back twice (it's now set to be released on July 13), and folks like Eli Roth have called them out basically saying that After Dark Films helped ruin the ratings process for other films, like Hostel: Part II, that were trying to go through the process at the exact same time. Following my interview with Roth (in which the director had some pretty harsh things to say about both Captivity and After Dark), I caught up with Solomon who wanted to set the record straight.

Cinematical: Let me read what Eli Roth said to me regarding Captivity and its controversial ad campaign: "Well ... I mean, everyone hates those guys. And word of mouth is that Captivity sucked. Why would I be jealous of that; I don't give a sh*t. I was pissed actually, because it makes it very difficult for the rest of us. They did not go before the MPAA with those posters. It really puts everyone on edge when that happens. And suddenly, who's the next one up? Oh, thanks, it's me. I'm not doing this for attention, I'm doing this to make good movies. And that decapitated head poster was a European poster; that was in 80% of the countries in Europe. It was not a poster that was intended for American audiences." What's your response to that?

Courtney Solomon: First of all, I've heard this over and over again -- [Eli] has spent most of his publicity tour talking about the Captivity posters and dissing us. I was listening to K-Rock one day, and he spent twenty minutes on there just going on about me -- and I've never even met Eli. As far as what he's saying, there are a couple of things that are completely inaccurate. First of all, nobody has seen Captivity because we re-did a third of the movie and we're just finishing it now. We actually just finished the mix on it two days ago. So he hears word around town that the movie is sh*t, but how can he say that when no one has even seen the movie? We just spent a lot of money and a lot of time to make the movie better, because we cared that the movie was good. In fact, it's got a lot more substance than his movie does -- that's number one. That's just a blatant, stupid, wrong statement. That's someone just spouting out from the mouth without even thinking about what they're saying.

Continue reading Interview: After Dark Films' Courtney Solomon Talks to Cinematical About 'Captivity' Controversy and Eli Roth's Big ... Mouth

Filed under: Drama, New Line, ThinkFilm, Celebrities and Controversy, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand

If you're not at all familiar with Tony Kaye, then I suggest reading this new Telegraph interview with the infamous artist/filmmaker/lunatic. In it, they explore Kaye's entire career -- from growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home aspiring to be a painter to suing New Line for $275 million after they wouldn't allow him to credit himself as Humpty Dumpty on the final version of American History X, the man has pulled more elaborate stunts than ... screw it; no one has pulled more maniacal stunts than this man. Some might consider the man a genius (he's won a whopping 23 design and art direction awards throughout his career), but his wild temper and nonsensical actions once brought him to a point where no one in their right mind wanted to work with him.

For example, when New Line wanted to make changes to Kaye's first cut of American History X, the director proclaimed, "I'm fully aware that I'm a first-time director, but I need the same autonomy and respect that Stanley Kubrick gets." And that was him being nice. From there, he spent $100,000 of his own money taking out advertisements in the trades denouncing Edward Norton and the producer, he would show up to studio meetings with a Priest, a Rabbi and a Tibetan monk, and was so upset about the eventual 18 minutes of footage that was added in, he hasn't watched the finished film in 10 years. But that's just the short version; how in the world they found a way to get a great film out of this experience is beyond me, but reading about it is almost as much fun as watching it. The best part is that Kaye is finishing up a documentary about the whole experience called Humpty Dumpty, and guess who's distributing it? Yup, New Line.

But after spending 10 years in Hollywood prison, Kaye is currently prepping his first narrative feature since AHX, Black Water Transit. This time he's older, wiser -- and hopefully he's learned his lesson. Humpty Dumpty is set to get a small theatrical release, and then New Line will put it on the 10th anniversary DVD re-release of American History X next year -- a DVD I will purchase, even though I already own an older copy. Kaye's abortion documentary, Lake of Fire, finally premiered last year at Toronto after the director had been working on it for years. ThinkFilm will distribute later this year. What's your favorite Tony Kaye story?