Apr 9, 2007 07:40 PM
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Hollywood, 2:17 PM
Tue Feb 9
56 posts in the last 24 hours
With the wounds from this weekend's Grindhouse bombing still suppurating like [mild spoiler alert] something Robert Rodriguez spirit-gummed to Quentin Tarantino's genitals in his half of their double-feature, the LA Weekly's Nikki Finke seems to have caught Harvey Weinstein in a vulnerable moment, getting him to admit that he's considering undoing virtually everything that was interesting about the project to begin with, from re-releasing Death Proof and Planet Terror as separate features to replacing the missing sex-scene reels purloined by a fictitious, horny projectionist claiming the best spank material for his own. Explains a momentarily humbled Weinstein:
"First of all, I'm incredibly disappointed. We tried to do something new and obviously we didn't do it that well," Harvey told me today. "It's just a question of how is it going to hang in there. But we could split the movies in a couple of weeks. Make Tarantino's a full-length film, and Rodriguez's too. We'll be adding those 'two missing reels' that's talked about in the movie. [...]
"Our research showed the length kept people away. It was the single biggest deterrent. It was 3 hours and 12 minutes long. We originally intended to get it all in in 2 hours, 30 minutes. That would have been a better time. But the movies ran longer, the [fake] trailers ran longer, everything ran longer," Harvey told me. [...]Weinstein admits that he thought the film would do much better than it did and sees the failure of Grindhouse's U.S. release as a rap on his reputation for movie savvy. He can't blame the directors. After all, he is closely tied to Tarantino and Rodriquez personally and professionally and, what's more, he and brother Bob made that relationship and Grindhouse a cornerstone of their fledgling company's financing. (No doubt, that's why Harvey, who has a long history of imposing his iron will on filmmakers, gave the two directors a pass when it came to Grindhouse's extreme length.) [...]
Harvey admitted to me that his attention may have been too diverted from the movie biz as a result [of his company's diversification]. "This Cannes, I'm going to change all that. I'm back to being me. We wanted to diversify immediately. Now I have to go back to being Harvey."
There is, however, good news for those unnerved by a second-guessing Weinstein, as he quickly built to a more characteristically confident stance, adding, "You know what? I don't care how much I love the guy, if Quentin turns in a Death Proof cut for the Cannes screening that's a second over 90 minutes, I will tear the extra frames out of the fucking projector with my bare hands and then strangle the projectionist, just for kicks. I'm back, baby!"
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