A few more quick news items.
1. Roger Friedman of Fox News reports that Disney may be trying to sell off the distribution rights to Mel Gibson‘s Apocalypto:
Mel Gibson’s movie “Apocalypto,” which Disney was supposed to release on Dec. 8, is “being shopped” to other potential distributors, sources tell me.
One potential distributor for “Apocalypto” is Lions Gate, an independent company with a history of rescuing distressed projects. In the past they’ve picked up Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” and Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” when Miramax was prevented from putting them out by their own agreements with Disney. . . .
A spokesperson for Lions Gate declined to comment on whether the company had talked to Disney or Gibson. At the same time, a reliable insider who knew the players in this game assured me that Disney was quietly shopping the film and that Lions Gate was first on its list of hopeful buyers.
2. Reuters has its own story now on the filming of Shake Hands with the Devil, and its political implications:
A new film about Rwanda’s 1994 genocide criticizes the United Nations for standing by as the slaughter unfolded, and asks if the world body has learned any lessons from the killings, its director said on Wednesday.
“Shake Hands with the Devil” is based on the book by Romeo Dallaire, the former Canadian general in command of U.N. forces in Rwanda at the time who was so traumatized by his failure to stop the massacres he later tried to kill himself.
“Our film is about a man who was aware genocide was coming and tried to get the U.N. to allow him to do something about it, but it instead it turned him down,” director Roger Spottiswoode said in an interview in Kigali.
“It is really about the bigger issue of what the U.N. role is in situations like these,” he told Reuters at the capital’s Amahoro stadium, which sheltered thousands of terrified residents in 1994 as the killers roamed the streets outside.
Spottiswoode said the film was particularly timely given the calls on the United Nations to intervene to end the war in Lebanon, and the ongoing efforts to send a U.N. force to stop rampant murders and rapes in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. The United States has called the Darfur conflict genocide. . . .
The big screen version of his book follows three other films about the genocide released in the last two years.
But while the others, including the award-winning “Hotel Rwanda,” have focused on the tales of individuals caught up in the bloodshed, Spottiswoode said his movie would be the first to examine in detail the United Nations’ lack of action.
“The U.N. has proved to be a complicated and imperfect organization,” said Spottiswoode, who also directed “Tomorrow Never Dies.” “Is it an institution that should be improved or destroyed? These are the questions raised in the movie.”
3. Anne Thompson reports that The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian will begin shooting in Europe in January.
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