Weinstein Co. Dumps Four More Films; We Translate the Excuses
Harvey Weinstein today passed along the not-so-surprising word that four Weinstein Company films slated for release this fall — Crossing Over, Fanboys, Shanghai and Killshot — will in fact be pushed back to 2009. Harvey's Friday News-Dump Massacre came by way of a phone call to Patrick Goldstein, to whom the schmogul spilled the details with all the crystalline logic we've come to expect — none of which, of course, has anything to do with the fact that he's broke. Find Defamer's handy Weinstein Excuse-to-English Guide™ for your convenience after the jump.· Fanboys: Harvey says the movie has been moved to January "so we can do a major promotion with Comcast, who's arranging for a big advertising tie-in for us on the film." (TRANSLATION: "Bob's a little behind burning DVD's, so we're letting Comcast customers rip their own for a limited time only.") · Crossing Over: "We're moving it to January. The market is just too crowded. Every week there are five more movies coming out. It's too crazy. Spring is much better—there are a lot more wide-open dates. The most important thing is to do well by the movie. Having it out in January gives us the opportunity to play the film at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals, which will be a big help to the movie." (TRANSLATION: "We're gonna try a pay-per-view premiere for festival guests at the Park City Marriott. Fresh ideas, Patrick! Hello?") · Killshot: "Everyone has said that Mickey Rourke is amazing in The Wrestler and will be up for all sorts of awards, so we decided to move Killshot to a date a few weeks before the Oscars. That way we can capitalize on all the heat that's going to be around Mickey." (TRANSLATION: "Do you know anyone who might wanna buy a Mickey Rourke movie? Never been opened.") · Shanghai: "It just couldn't be ready in time. The movie wasn't finished shooting until August and the director, Mikael Hafstrom, doesn't even deliver his cut until early November. He doesn't want it out now and neither do we. He needs time to make it as great as possible." (TRANSLATION: "Holy fucking shit, this sucks.") Meanwhile, Goldstein also quotes an anonymous industry heckler who said, "Whenever I'm tempted to take a project to Harvey, I lie down and take a nap and hope that when I wake up, I'm sober again." It's probably safe at this point to cross that "Weinstein-resurgence" prediction off our list for the season.