The Official MovieSet Blog
Babylon AD director calls out studio
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The latest movie starring the gravel-voiced Vin Diesel is set to open this Friday and the picture’s director is going on the record about how bad it is. Babylon AD was directed by Mathieu Kassovitz told the AMC blog that his latest work is a mess due to unnecessary creative decision making by the studio, 20th Century Fox. “I’m very unhappy with the film,” Kassovitz told the site. “I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn’t respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible
experience.”
If Babylon AD tanks at the box office it will be the final, savage swordstroke on what’s proven to be a disasterous summer season for Fox. The second X-Files movie tanked, barely able to squeak past $10 million dollars in ticket sales on its opening weekend. Eddie Murphy’s Meet Dave met with even worse results, making only a million more in its entire theatrical run than X-Files 2 did on its first three days of release. The horror film Mirrors and Rainn Wilson’s comedy The Rocker have also proven to be financial disappointments for the company. Babylon AD is Fox’s last gasp at having a winner for the summer of ‘08, but let’s face it: movie studios don’t release their top prospects on the weekend just before kids head back to school.
Comparing parts of his movie to “a bad episode of 24,”, Kassovitz was clear about where he may have gone wrong. “I should have chosen a studio that has guts,” the French filmmaker said, not holding back. “Fox was just trying to get a PG-13 movie. I’m ready to go to war against them, but I can’t because they don’t give a s–t.”
When AMC contacted Fox to respond to Kassovitz’s comments they never received a reply.
Posted at 8:37PM by admin
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