The non-hits just keep on comin’ for Harvey Weinstein, who is clearly having the Best Month Ever (see: lost $1 million bet with Nikki Finke, Project Runway litigation, Scott Rudin hit jobs, the Tarantino tapes). The news surfaced yesterday that while Harvey was busy bullying Sydney Pollack on his deathbed to push up the release of The Reader, he was quietly pushing back the theater date of Killshot, a.k.a. the Most-Hyped Movie You Will Probably Never See. This is the fifth time that the Weinstein Co. has delayed the John Madden–Quentin Tarantino crime drama since 2005, and it seems no amount of reshoots or stalling can hide the fact that, despite floating around Hollywood for more than a decade, this movie is probably an unsalvageable shitshow. And if anyone doesn’t need a shitshow on his hands right now, it’s Harv.
Still, it’s amazing that the movie turned out to be such a mess given the dream team that has been involved since the beginning. The script, based on an Elmore Leonard story, first started making the rounds in the nineties, when the brothers Weinstein (then doing the Miramax thing) tapped Tony Scott (Beat the Devil) to direct a cast including De Niro, Tarantino, Willis, and Thurman. It later traveled to the Weinstein Co., and the Mickey Rourke and Diane Lane led the new cast. Now-deceased directors Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack made changes to Hossein Amini’s script, and Tarantino came back on to executive-produce the thing. This was three years ago. Four push-backs and no distribution deals later, we’re still waiting. Poor Harvey — in better times, he could have released Killshot anyway, taking a bet on big names. But given his recent box-office record, he can’t actually afford to take any risks. And when Harvey Weinstein stops being able to afford things, well, we’re all in trouble.
Is ‘Killshot’ Another Weinstein Co. Misfire? [LAT]
Related: And In This Corner, Harvey Scissorhands!
