Harvey Weinstein is an extremely powerful producer and distributor. If he loves you and you’re on his good side, he will support you and your film all the way through to the Oscars, where you’ll probably win. If you are not in Weinstein’s favor, then he will seemingly work to destroy you, even if it means a financial loss for himself, even if it means creating enemies for no real reason other than a difference of opinion. Korean director Bong Joon-Ho and Weinstein went to war several years back over Snowpiercer – the director’s cut of Snowpiercer was released in some markets (not controlled by Weinstein), but Weinstein wanted a particularly rough edit of the film released in American markets, despite the critical acclaim for the director’s cut. That’s just one example out of dozens. And here’s another one – director James Gray is speaking out about his history with Weinstein.

Gray is currently promoting The Lost City of Z, which was not produced or distributed by Weinstein. But Gray first dealt with Harvey in 2001, with Gray’s film The Yards. Gray says now that Weinstein gave The Yards a “poor release” (as in, Weinstein didn’t support it and didn’t promote it properly). So Gray didn’t want Weinstein to have anything to do with the film he directed in 2013, The Immigrant, starring Marion Cotillard. This is what happened:

Gray on The Immigrant: “I didn’t intend for Harvey to buy and release ‘The Immigrant’ – I thought it was a terrible idea. And I didn’t think he would want the film, and I didn’t think he would like the film. He bought the film without me knowing! He bought it from the equity people who raised the money for me in the States. And I told them it was a terrible idea, but I had no say over the matter.”

Weinstein wanted Gray to change the ending to something really happy: “So at that point the calculus becomes this: a) Do I change the film, and in my mind destroy it? His cut was 88 minutes, had a Sound of Music-style ending with a soaring camera shot, with Marion [Cotillard] and her sister walking over a mountain in LA, narration saying ‘I made it, I made it,’ soaring music, and all that. The audience doesn’t know that that’s not your idea. You get the blame because you’re the director and the writer of it. So I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to take the blame for that.’ What would happen is that that film would get bad response critically anyway, so then it would get the bad response, the film would bomb, and it’s not my cut. B) Or, it’s my cut and the film never gets released. And maybe if I continue my career it becomes the legendary movie that I made that nobody could ever see. So I felt that option b) was way better than option a). And he felt that this was just a totally terrible, obstinate, egotistical view on my part, because he felt his view was more quote ‘commercial’. I think I’m right.”

Gray says Weinstein barely supported the director’s cut of The Immigrant: “But, you know, part of the absurdity of Ayn Rand is this conception that people always act out of self-interest. When in fact we act very frequently out of self-destruction. A lot of times we do very self-destructive things. And Harvey burying the movie was a very self-destructive act, which was basically an extension of the rejection of him. It violated his narcissistic principles. When you don’t do exactly what he wants, it doesn’t matter that it’s in his self-interest to protect the film – he doesn’t see it that way.”

What Weinstein says now: “Unfortunately while there were many good reviews in America, the movie didn’t work commercially and that was a universal result. There were 40 other distributors on the film and the movie didn’t work anywhere. James is an artist and sometimes that doesn’t work commercially. I hope his next film is both a huge success commercially and critically. I understand that he is mad at me, but I tried my best to move the movie in a way that would satisfy both the audience and the critics. He’s a wonderful director, a great man and he deserves success.”

[From Page Six]

What Gray says… I believe him. I believe all of it. I believe that Harvey tried to bury the film out of spite, because Gray asserted his authority and went with his director’s cut. That being said, I saw The Yards and it sucked! But I never saw The Immigrant, probably because Harvey had it buried. The Immigrant did end up winning a bunch of smaller critics’ awards, but I guess Harvey made sure that it didn’t get nominated for anything big.

This poster, though. Did Harvey do this on purpose?!?

Photos courtesy of WENN.