Oliver Stone talks to lead actor Colin Farrell on set
Posted on 12/31/2004 8:35:27 AM PST by monkapotamus
Alexander the Not So Great
By Hugh Davies
(Filed: 31/12/2004)
The Hollywood film director Oliver Stone said yesterday that the flop in America of his £83 million production about Alexander the Great was 'dismaying', confessing that more people watched it on the opening weekend in Croatia 'than in the entire' Deep South.
Mr Stone said: "I still think it's a beautiful movie, but Alexander deserves better than I gave him. There was clear resistance to his homosexuality. It became the headline to the movie.
Oliver Stone talks to lead actor Colin Farrell on set |
"They called him Alexander the gay. That's horribly discriminatory, but the film simply didn't open in the Bible Belt."
He said that he should have cut it from three hours to two-and-a-half "and taken out the homosexuality for the US market and for countries sensitive to such things, like Korea or Greece".
He added: "Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness."
The director, speaking to Variety and the New York Times, said that he had dreamt of the project since film school. "I really love this subject so much, but perhaps I just failed to communicate that to an American audience and American critics."
So far, the film has limped to an £18 million gross. Critics have ripped it to pieces. One wrote: "Easily the most fantastic self-destruction I have witnessed in years, Alexander is sordid evidence of what happens when Hollywood producers, burned-out directors and unenthused stars stand in a circle and set fire to $150 million. The real Alexander isn't just rolling in his grave, he's clawing his decayed eyes out."
Mr Stone said it was "always" an uphill battle with the critics. He was hoping for "a breakthrough" after being off the screen for five years. "But I was surprised by the hardness of the reviews."
Moritz Borman, the chairman of Intermedia, the Beverly Hills company that produced the film, said he hoped that the epic mitigated its losses abroad, in places such as Britain.
He claimed that Intermedia has covered its flanks with pre-sales: "We will not lose a penny. But if the picture doesn't work in some foreign territories, they will take the hit. If the picture makes over $100 million foreign, most will be OK. But if the picture fares the way it did here, they will lose.''
Mr Stone said that making the film was like trying to wrap his arms around an elephant. It could have been five hours long, giving him the chance to explain the complicated rivalry among Alexander's mother, wife Roxane, and soul mate Hephiastion.
The director also accepted that he had obscured some symbolic images and foreshadowed plot points. "For example, the young man who kills Philip is shown being humiliated earlier at one of Philip's licentious wedding parties.
"Had I put things in more linear order and shortened everything, maybe more people would get it. There are 100 things like that in the film."
He said he regretted that critics had attacked Anthony Hopkins's lengthy narration scenes as Ptolemy, and an accent used by Angelina Jolie that reviewers mocked.
Great review - 'clawing his decayed eyes out' - LOL!
I wonder who made this the headline, maybe the director? What a moron...
Maybe he should take about 10 years off this time. His movies continue to suck badly.
That's hilarious! I'd like to know who wrote that so I could read some more of his reviews.
Stone was pretty honest and accurate in his analysis about the failure of this dog of a movie. That's amazing from someone like him that usually prefers to make up history.
It is said that her accent was like that of Bela Lugosi...
I will see the movie when I can see it for free. Otherwise, I will take the overwhelmingly negative reaction from almost all of the critics and people that saw the movie; that this was a real disaster...
150 million wasted on a bad movie. Compare to the money being sent to tsunami relief.
I heard on the news last night that "The Fantastic 4" just had it's budget raised 20 million to "make Mr. Fantastic's powers look as good as Ms. Incredible."
Such gross displays of wealth by those who in turn say I don't give enough.
BTW - If they cut Colin Ferrell's shirt any shorter you'd see his package. Who told these guys how to design armor?
LOL. Us silent-majority-types don't scream and yell like the lefties . . . we just have long, long memories and Stone is now receiving his just-due karma for all the crap he's tried to force-feed us over the years. Life is good.
...which demonstrates yet again the extraordinary sophistication of the South.
He probably figured that The Passion of the Christ did well because of the publicity, rather than the fact that there are a slew of Christians who take their salvation seriously. Must be really tpough to find out that creating a publicity controversy over trash doesn't sell the trash...
Gotta love Dixie!
Looks like it's "Zach Jones."
http://www.cornellsun.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/11/30/41abe7a07f452
Another hard lesson in market economics. If you don't give the people what they want, they'll stay home in droves.
ROTFLMAO... Oh what fun it must be, to be a critic LOL
"the chance to explain the complicated rivalry among Alexander's mother, wife Roxane, and soul mate Hephiastion."
Stone just doesn't get it. He apparently missed a little part of Alexander's life-like the conquest of the known world with a relatively small army. Liberals think people are defined by their sex life or skin color. Period. And achievements are incidental, rather than vice versa. It's a tabloid mentality shared by individuals with no sense of history or appreciation for ordinary people who perform acts which change the course of human civilization. To them, it's who's doing what to whom that really matters. It's the sign of a narrow, unimaginative mind.
That's funny because a girl I know who went to high school with her said she looked like Dracula when she knew her.
That, and Colin ("Colon"?) Farrell can't act his way out of a wet paper bag.
another Stone quote showing how far he is from understanding "fly over country"
"Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness."
Ever hear of Jesus? Just another put down not to cleverly disguised as an observation.
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