Harvey Weinstein: Star Wars fans fight back
Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is notorious for ordering films to be recut, but a rebel alliance of 'Star Wars' aficionados has him on the run over a cherished project. Kaleem Aftab reports on the fans' fightback
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Monday, 7 April 2008
Harvey Weinstein isn't usually one to back down. He earned the sobriquet Harvey Scissorhands because of his penchant for buying films and then, in a bid to boost their box-office potential, ordering them to be recut to his own personal taste and, more often than not, to the chagrin of the film's director. When Grindhouse failed at the US box-office last year, not even Quentin Tarantino could stop the most recognisable producer on the planet ordering that it be split in two for its international release.
But now it looks like the movie mogul may have finally picked a fight that he won't win. Amazingly, he may have to abandon his plans to change the film Fanboys.
In 2005, Weinstein looked like he had pulled off another masterstroke when he bought the rights to Ernie Cline's script idea Fanboys – a warm-hearted homage to the people who obsess over Star Wars. In the film, a group of Star Wars geeks break into George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch on the eve of the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace so that their cancer-stricken friend can see the film before he dies.
The concept first surfaced publicly in 1998 on the movie gossip website Aint It Cool News. Harry Knowles, the film critic and site founder, raved about the concept and production deals were made. Kevin Spacey's Trigger Street production company was involved, and Kyle Newman was named as director. Fans pitched in, loaning memorabilia and appearing as extras. The cast includes Kristen Bell, Seth Rogen and Dan Fogler and, with the Weinstein Company financing, shooting took place in the summer of 2006.
By the time footage began showing at Star Wars festivals in 2007, it was looking as if Weinstein had a breakout hit on his hands. A rough cut was screened at a Star Wars celebration and comic convention in the UK last summer and was enthusiastically received. The US release date was set for 17 August 2007. The force was certainly with the movie, it seemed.
But then news surfaced that the head honcho of the Weinstein Company was not happy with the film. His problem? The idea of a comedy revolving around someone terminally ill with cancer. Not even the $90m that The Bucket List – a film about two terminally ill men who try to fulfil their dreams before they die – took at the US box-office early this year could convince him that mentioning cancer in a comedy wasn't commercial suicide. Weinstein decided that the cancer plot had to be excised and when director Newman and writer Cline refused to make the requisite changes, Weinstein employed Drillbit Taylor director Steven Brill to oversee a $2m reshoot of four scenes.
It's at this point that the fans of Fanboys – and, more importantly, fans of Star Wars – decided to form a rebel alliance. The 501st, a Star Wars fan group named after a battle in the films, decided that the only version of the film they wanted to see was the one with the cancer storyline – this was the definitive and only "true" version of the film. Harvey Scissorhands was recast as Darth Weinstein. A campaign under the banner Stop Darth Weinstein! was launched, with the main focus being a website, http://committed.to/stopdarthweinstein, in which Weinstein can be seen dressed as Darth Vader.
A video produced by the 'Stop Darth Weinstein' campaign
The question remained whether the public could do what no film-maker had done and force Weinstein to abandon his plans. At first, the answer seemed to be a resounding no. The Weinstein Company began testing the new version of the film and the audience response, measured by a points scoring system, was pretty much the same for both films, with the non-cancer version slightly on top. At this point, the light sabres were drawn for battle.
The fans' fury was stoked when the reshoots' director, Brill, joined an online chat session under the alias GL, the initials of George Lucas. His cover was blown and the chat descended into expletives and threats. A video backing the fans surfaced online, lampooning Darth Weinstein. The video starts with a roller title sequence in the style of the Star Wars films explaining details of the Stop Darth Weinstein! campaign. Then we see a Death Star sporting a Weinstein Company logo, and inside is Darth Weinstein, explaining why his judgement is the only one that counts.
The Stop Darth Weinstein! campaign called for the boycott of all Weinstein Company films, starting with Superhero Movie, a send-up of superhero films, which came out in the US two weeks ago. They also asked fans to flood the Weinstein Company with emails demanding the reinstatement of the original film.
Days before the release of Superhero Movie, the Weinstein Company made its first concession, stating that both versions of the film would be made available on DVD and that they were undecided over which version to release theatrically.
The 501st were unimpressed. "This is clearly a vain attempt by the Weinstein Company to avert Star Wars fans' impending boycott of all their films," the group stated. "It's not going to work, Darth Weinstein. There was never any doubt that you would release both versions of the movie on DVD, probably months apart, so as to leech as much money from Star Wars fans as possible. Our boycott will continue until the Weinstein Company announces that they are returning control of Fanboys to the Star Wars fans who made it, releasing the original version in theatres and doing away with the anti-fan version of the film altogether."
The Superhero Movie boycott went ahead the Friday before last, with Fanboys protests taking place at a cinema in Los Angeles and one in New York. Superhero Movie was expected to compete for the top box-office spot with weekend takings of about $18m, but it ended third with less than $10m. The Stop Darth Weinstein! movement claimed they'd succeeded in hitting Weinstein where it hurts – in his pocket. The Weinstein Company said the boycott had little to do with it.
The battleground has changed from when Weinstein was in his prime at Miramax. In the era of the internet and user-generated entertainment, it's far harder to run roughshod over the beliefs of film-makers. Online petitions have started to affect key decisions. On television, the animated series Family Guy was brought back after being axed because of the weight of fan protest; Serenity, a movie spin-off of the cancelled television series Firefly, was commissioned after the programme gained a cult following online. Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L Jackson, was commissioned on the back of the success of the online cartoon.
The case of Fanboys marks the moment at which audiences became as powerful as the film-makers when it comes to the key decisions on what should be left on the cutting-room floor. The fans no longer see themselves as merely spectators, feeling that films belong to them as much as they do to the film-makers.
In his time, Weinstein has seen off many heavyweight directors, including Martin Scorsese, but even he has to listen when faced with the new force in Hollywood – film fans.
