Wow. Talk about a huge accusation. A FilmMaker is accusing Tarantino of STEALING his film idea GrindHouse. Quote and warning it has some very unsuitable verbage in it:'Quentin Tarantino is a thieving piece of shit and he knows it. He stole Grindhouse from a bunch of kids who were just asking for his help and he helped them by stealing their title and concept.
Let me explain. For those who don't know, I made a film called Grindhouse in 2003. We actually started shooting it in 2002, but went to the festivals and got reviews in 2003, winning BEST HORROR FILM in the New York International Film and Video Festival. We also got many favorable mentions from established publications such as Fangoria and Rue Morgue. The movie was low, low, low budget. Which made sense, because that's what Grindhouse films were – really low budget movies that had little artistic merit. Most of the reviewers got that. They realized what we realized – if you're going to make a horror movie with $4,000 – the smart bet is to redo a Grindhouse film where the low budget and all that comes with it are celebrated.
We approached Tarantino twice during the life of Grindhouse. The first time is when producer Lenny Shteynberg and I were at the premier after party for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in Westwood. Tarantino was there, and to his credit, he was very approachable. I told him that we were going to shoot a new kind of Grindhouse movie, and asked if we could show it to him when we were finished. He politely declined, andwe parted friends.
It would be two years later – November 2003- after we finished production (and won our award), that we again approached Tarantino. We knew the movie was too tiny for a theatrical run, but thought maybe we could get a direct to DVD deal. Through industry contacts, I found the business address for his production company, and Fed Ex'd a copy of the film and the poster. It was signed for by a "C. Hill." or Chill. I knew he received it, and just hoped that got what we were trying to do. Kill Bill was on the radar, so I thought it was good timing for us. We never heard from Tarantino or anyone in his production company.'
Give the entire deal a read on the site where it started at. Oh and be sure to buy their movie. I have no idea if this is a ploy to get us to buy their movie, or its valid, but the dude is definitely pissed.
You decide whats going on.
3 comments:
Eeeeyeaahhh, I dunno.
1. Neither the word Grindhouse nor that genre of cinema were invented by either party.
2. That Tarantino talks a lot about his upcoming projects doesn't mean he talks about all of them.
3. If a big outfit was working on an idea and found out a small outfit was doing something similar and ealier than their version of it, then stonewalling the inquiries of the small outfit is probably exactly what they'd do.
4. I don't really care.
3. No, they'd buy it to avoid exactly this kind of thing. This is a serious issue for writers and I don't agree with octo's assessment. I DO care, and I think stuff like this stinks.
Jordan's right to disagree with my assessement on this. I was putting together my comment above when I was interrupted by work stuff; I came back right before it was time to leave and decided to just hit "publish" before I'd bothered to comment on the other side of the argument. As my comment comes off above, it sounds like an apology for Tarantino and big biz and that isn't where I mean to come from.
Stuff like this DOES stink and writers need to protect themselves as best they can. That these guys copyrighted their material and still got screwed puzzles me. When I worked in book publishing I recall hearing "titles aren't copyrightable," which can't be true across the board or everyone would make a movie called Star Wars. I don't know enough about copyright law to get into it, but I wonder how much a concept as loose as Grindhouse (either '03 or '07) can be protected.
I guess the question is to what extent, legally, they got screwed.
On the Grindhouse '03 site the guy mentions that this is not about money or publicity for their movie, but about calling QT out for being a thief and a jerk. If that's the case, then discussing this on the blog is the best thing we can do for them.
While I do take this issue more seriously than I indicate in my first comment, there is a point at which I reserve the right not to care. When, for instance, writer Sophia Stewart sued The Matrix, I didn't let the fact that the Wachowskis allegedly behaved like evil bastards get in the way of my enjoyment of those movies. A lot of people are assholes, and a lot of those assholes are artists. Being able to make a space for myself in which I and the piece of art I'm viewing are the only things that exist is something I'm proud of. I intend to enjoy the fake, stolen Grindhouse.
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