Fox puts "Phone" (DC sniper flick) on hold

Yahoo! News / Variety ^ | 10.16.02

[mhking]

Fox puts "Phone" on hold

Wed Oct 16, 5:10 AM ET

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Twentieth Century Fox has elected to postpone indefinitely the release of director Joel Schumacher's sniper thriller "Phone Booth," while a real-life gunman terrorizes residents around the nation's capital.

"In light of recent events, we are delaying the release of 'Phone Booth,"' said Flo Grace, a spokeswoman for the studio. "We don't have a new date yet."

The movie was scheduled to be released Nov. 15.

"Phone Booth" centers on a man who answers a ringing pay phone and discovers he's in the gunsight of a sniper who plans to kill him if he hangs up.

Insiders at Fox say the $12 million picture may be released early in 2003, though the situation is still fluid.

The film stars Irish actor Colin Farrell and "24" TV star Kiefer Sutherland. It was directed by Joel Schumacher, who has shot a string of flops in recent years, including "Bad Company" and "Batman & Robin."

In a review published last month, Daily Variety said "Phone Booth" was "simple and surprise-deficient" and would have been better suited to a half-hour TV slot.

The Washington sniper has killed nine people in a wide area around the capital since launching a 15-hour shooting spree earlier this month.

[Sgt_Schultze]

The movie looks stupid. Where does one go to find a "phone booth" in 2003?

[Sam Cree]

You wonder what would be entertaining about such a scenario anyway.

[Callahan]

Sounds tedious. Better be a magic phonebooth like on Dr. Who.

[bvw]

Sounds like one of those pay-by-minute off-shore 900 number services. They'll do anything to get those minutes.

[stlnative]

lol...

[WSGilcrest]

I saw an ad for the new video game "Hitman II" last night. Thought it rather odd.

[ladyinred]

I am amazed at what some people consider entertainment, but have no doubt there is an audience for this kind of garbage.
I do wonder, as one poster said, where they find a phone booth now days? No such animal anymore, might make us be able to have some comfort when we spend $100 for a local call.

[uncbob]

Leftist liberals in Hollywood produce movie after movie with senseless gun violence

Anybody getting shot has to have a gazillion bullets hit him etc etc etc

Yet these pukes have the nerve to be anti gun

[fight_truth_decay]

I had seen the Preview recently..they knew it was a bust of a film and this way can release in a more Timely $$$ manner.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Leftist liberals in Hollywood produce movie after movie with senseless gun violence. Anybody getting shot has to have a gazillion bullets hit him etc etc etc. Yet these pukes have the nerve to be anti gun,

Words of wisdom...

[mhking]

this way can release in a more Timely $$$ manner.

Can you say "direct to video & PPV?"

[PBRSTREETGANG]

So basically, with some added drama, they want you to sit in a theater for two hours to watch a guy talk on a phone in a phonebooth.

(Must've taken alot of cocaine to pitch this script.)

[Cicero]

Kill him if he hangs up? It sounds like an old Andy Warhol movie. Two hours watching a man desperately using every ploy to keep someone on the other end of the line from hanging up.

Or, even more exciting, pretending to talk to someone who has already hung up, while listening to that beep, beep, beeping sound that phones make when you forget to hang them up.

Almost as exciting as watching a faucet drip.