“We have worked to make our festival a public showcase for creative expression through the moving image, however with uncertainty surrounding the creative vision of the version of the film scheduled to be screened on September 18, we feel it is only appropriate that we remove this film from the festival lineup”.
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“London Fields“, based on a Martin Amis novel, was meant to be his directorial debut for a feature film.
London Fields features a cast that also includes Theo James, Jim Sturgess, Jason Isaacs, Cara Delevingne, Jaimie Alexander, Lily Cole and Johnny Depp.
The lawsuit is targeted at producers Jordan Gertner and Christopher Hanley, whose wife, Roberta, wrote the script for London Fields.
Billy Bob Thornton plays terminally ill writer Samson Young who arrives in a London devastated by an unspecified crisis (the riots). The film’s PR company told us it is “not commenting at this stage”.
Along with the allegations about content, the lawsuit says producers failed to properly finance the film and haven’t properly paid Cullen for his work and expenses, which total more than $1 million. At one point, the two rivals were reportedly preparing two separate versions simultaneously, and the filmmaker may even have attempted to take his name off the film after his producer intercut stock footage of 9/11 and nuclear blasts into the movie, but proved unable to do so due to DGA rules.
Hanley is a well-known figure within the independent film world and has helped bring celebrated examples of offbeat cinema such as Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers and Mary Harron’s much-praised Christian Bale-led adaptation of American Psycho to the big screen.
Following an industry screening at the Toronto global Film Festival (TIFF) on Wednesday, critics have given the film mixed reviews.
However, the Guardian’s Henry Barnes suggested London Fields would be unlikely to achieve a similar cult status to Hanley’s other films. “I thought it had a lot of atmosphere, terrific performances”. An email sent to representative for Muse Productions was not immediately returned.
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The film was picked up for distribution by Lionsgate yesterday.
