BROTHERS GRIMM: Gilliam Vs. Harvey & Bob

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AndyDursin
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BROTHERS GRIMM: Gilliam Vs. Harvey & Bob

#1 Post by AndyDursin »

The movie looks surprisingly OK -- and a whole lot like Burton's SLEEPY HOLLOW.

I doubt we'll ever see a longer or alternate version, but this certainly sounds like the Weinsteins were up to their old tricks on this one.
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From the Sunday NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/movie ... gewanted=2

What Mr. Gilliam wouldn't talk about then, because he was legally obliged not to, was that the whole time he was working on "Tideland," he was also engaged in an epic stare-down with Bob Weinstein, head of Dimension Films, over the final shape of "The Brothers Grimm," which at that point had been finished for months. "Usually my battles are when I finish a film, but this one got off to some very bad beginnings," he said later, and he explained that Dimension took "The Brothers Grimm" over from MGM when the production was already on location in Prague. Before shooting began, Mr. Weinstein insisted that Samantha Morton be replaced as the female lead (the part eventually went to Lena Headey), and not long afterward he replaced the director of photography, Nicola Pecorini, with whom Mr. Gilliam has had a long and trusting relationship.

"He just had a different view of the film," Mr. Gilliam said of Mr. Weinstein. And by the time the movie was completed, "the division was so extreme we're talking about two different films."

"The powers that be kept talking about 'another film,' and I said, 'I don't think there is another film,' " he explained. He declined to mention any specifics, except to remark that at one point his movie had been unfavorably compared with "Spy Kids."

With no resolution in sight, Mr. Gilliam and Dimension agreed, in effect, that each side would temporarily walk away from the film and see if things didn't cool down.

"It happens with every film," he explained to me recently. "There comes a part where the money and the creative elements all come crashing together. Everybody's under a lot of pressure, and everybody is panicking about what works and what doesn't. And the studios and the money always have one perspective and the creative people have another one, and usually what happens is a lot of compromises get made. I decided not to. I walked off and did 'Tideland' and came back six months later."

It seems to have worked: as a result of the hiatus, he says, he was able to correct some mistakes he might not have seen otherwise. "I always dreamed of being able to finish a film, walk away from it, and then come back a few months later," he said, "and this time the circumstances sort of allowed it to happen."

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