As awards season heats
up, a dispute has broken out between producer Bob Yari, one of
the producers of last year's Oscar-winning "Crash," and Warner
Bros. over the Oscar potential of "The Painted Veil" a period
drama starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.
Debates between the filmmakers and Warners over the final
cut of the film -- in which China, where the movie was shot,
had final say -- delayed delivery of the finished print. The
producer is unhappy with the studio's support for the film to
date. At one point, Yari even offered to buy the film back from
the studio.
Warner Bros. president Alan Horn said the studio has faith
in the movie, and the Oscar campaign has been hampered only by
the delays stemming from the deal producers made to shoot in
China.
"Veil," a lushly mounted $21 million project shot on
location deep inside China, is based on the W. Somerset Maugham
novel about a British doctor and his wife, and how their
marriage is tested when they travel to a remote Chinese village
in the midst of a cholera epidemic.
Warner Independent Pictures will open "Veil" in Los Angeles
and New York on December 20, when it also will bow in Beijing
and Shanghai. The plan is to roll it out further December 29 in
both the U.S. and China.
"Veil" has the pedigree of an Oscar contender: Norton has
received two previous acting nominations, while Watts has
earned one. It was written by Ron Nyswaner, an Oscar nominee
for "Philadelphia." The National Board of Review included it
among its top 10 films of the year, it grabbed two Film
Independent Spirit Award nominations for best actor and
screenplay, and last week it earned a Golden Globe nomination
for its score by Alexandre Desplat.
But unlike other Oscar contenders that first surfaced at
the fall film festivals, "Veil's" prospects might have been
hampered by the debate over its final cut, which delayed
delivery until November 14. As the clocked ticked away, Warners
even threatened to push the movie back to March. WIP's
screening program and "for your consideration" trade ads began
late and have been limited.
Yari, who successfully released the Norton vehicle "The
Illusionist" himself this year, asked Warners to let him buy
back the film. "The team at WIP is unbelievably supportive of
the movie, but they have been handicapped and restrained from
above," said Yari, who financed 80% of the project. "We're a
small company putting a campaign behind 'The Illusionist.'
Compare the two. I said, 'Let me release 'Painted Veil,' I'll
do it for free.' They don't care. Someone up there wants the
film buried."
Horn told Yari he could buy back the film if he wanted to,
but, Horn said, "We didn't hear back. It didn't go anywhere."
Buying back North American rights would have cost Yari, by
studio estimates, about $4.5 million.
Yari also offered to supplement the studio's marketing
campaign, but wanted to recoup his costs before the studio,
which only put Warners "at further risk," according to one WIP
source. The producer's other offers for additional advertising
funding were met with skepticism by the studio.
There are a number of factors that might be playing a role
in how Warners has decided to promote "Veil."
For one thing, Warners is fielding a strong lineup of bona
fide Oscar contenders, including "The Departed," "Letters from
Iwo Jima" and "Happy Feet." Horn also has Oscar hopes for the
$100 million African adventure "Blood Diamond."
"We have an awful lot of movies," Horn said, "and 'Painted
Veil' has a relatively modest budget. It's a terrific,
well-made movie that's emotional and about something, an
interesting and different film. We need to get it seen by
people. A lot of critical reviews are not in. There's time to
push it if it resonates with the critical community. We'll
see."
Said Norton: "When the studios are in for a penny, they're
in for a pound. When you're giving them product, then their
nose is in the wind a lot more. If it smells good, they'll run
with it. But if it doesn't, they're not invested in it."
"Veil" might also be handicapped because it is a holdover
from the previous WIP regime led by Mark Gill, who brought the
script to the studio after a stint producing films with the
Yari Film Group. Over the demurrals of his supervisor, Warners
production president Jeff Robinov, Gill convinced Horn to
greenlight the movie.
Gill's clashes with Robinov eventually led to Gill's
departure from WIP in May, but before he left, he assembled the
elements for "Veil." Initially, Gill lured director Caroline
Link ("Nowhere in Africa"), Norton and Watts. The actress left
the project after Nicole Kidman briefly expressed interest, but
Gill brought Watts back on board with director John Curran, who
had made WIP's "We Don't Live Here Anymore" with Watts.
In order to shoot the film in China, Gill negotiated a deal
with Warner China Film HG Corp., a co-venture among Warner
Bros., the China Film Group and Hengdian Group that was created
in 2004. In exchange for official co-production status, Warner
China, which is 30% owned by Warners, awarded the Chinese
government the right of final cut of the picture for the world.
Warner China paid $1.8 million to acquire the film for release
in China.
According to Yari, he agreed to that deal with the proviso
that if the filmmakers were not happy with the final cut, they
could return the $1.8 million and take back the film. The
filmmakers and the Chinese went over the screenplay in advance
and agreed to trim some of the material involving
Chinese-on-Chinese conflict and crowds of protesters.
After a long postproduction editing process, during which
the film was considerably restructured, "Veil" was submitted to
the Chinese government censors. They demanded more cuts, to
which Warner China and WIP agreed, according to WIP senior vp
production and acquisitions Paul Federbush. But Curran and
Norton refused to accept all the edits. Norton went so far as
to approach Time Warner chairman and CEO Richard Parsons, a
family friend, for help.
Horn received a phone call from another Time Warner
executive on Parsons' behalf, but Horn insisted that it made no
difference. "We gave worldwide final cut to the government," he
said. "That's the deal the producers made because they wanted
to shoot in China. It's about honoring a deal. Final cut is
final cut. There were arguments about restoring 38 seconds over
six scenes. We didn't feel that was much of a problem. It's
subjective. Is it a lot or a little? They had spirited
dialogue. That dialogue resulted in some things being restored.
But at the end of the day, the decision was up to the Chinese."
"This film is a valiant attempt at a Chinese co-production
in a very difficult environment," Yari said. "The Chinese are
on the verge of opening up to Western filmmaking and exhibition
in their country. This was a groundbreaking film bringing a
Western sensibility to their world, which has tightly
controlled public information. Warners finally did step in and
help."
Warner China went back "at great risk to the people who
work in the joint venture," Federbush said. "They asked for a
compromise, which is something you don't do. But they did. That
allowed Norton and Curran to move on." After Warner China
argued for and won a few concessions from the government, the
filmmakers also made a few small cuts, and the situation was
resolved. "What John, Ron and I wanted," said Norton, "we
achieved. We held the line on the things we cared about. I feel
good about that."
To kick start an awards season campaign, WIP marketing
chief Laura Kim scrambled to create unfinished screeners for
the critics' groups and the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., but
Watts was not available for promotional duties until the week
of December 12, due to her work schedule. Thousands of DVDs
were shipped to the guilds and the Academy by the end of last
week.
"The print was delayed because of the censorship issue,"
Federbush said. "It would have been fine if we didn't have
that."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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