The eccentric Quentin Tarantino thinks Disney has it in for him as the movie “Star Wars” pushed his movie out of his favorite art-house cinema. Tarantino believes this move was “vindictive” on Disney’s part. The Los Angeles theater is just “one “f—king theater,” said the quirky film maker, and Disney had to rain on his parade. Tarantino conveyed his movie showing woes to Howard Stern during a recent interview.
Not only is Disney “f—king him,” he feels that Disney is going “out of their way” to do this, reports Fox News on December 16. This was the topic of Tarantino’s latest rage, which was sent over the airways to the nationwide audience of Howard Stern’s SirusXM morning show.
Tarantino’s latest movie, “The Hateful Eight,” is a period piece that was due to be screened the old-fashion way by using 70-mm projectors. Thousands of dollars were spent on these projectors by the Weinstein Co., which is distributing the movie.
It appears that Weinstein’s agreement with the cinema in question was a “handshake agreement.” It also appears the theater owners were between a rock and a hard place when Disney’s “Star Wars” movie came along with some contingencies.
The owner of the theater had his other theaters to consider when Disney gave the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard an offer with very little wiggle room, according to some observers of this deal. If the theater was to decline a four-week run of the “Star Wars” movie, then their other ArcLight Cinemas would not be running this year’s hottest movie at all!
It was an all or nothing offer and most businesses would have no choice but to err on the side of finances, which is just what the theater did. They took the “Star Wars” offer over their “handshake agreement” for Tarantino’s “Hateful Eight” showing. According to MSN News, Tarantino explained to Stern how he believes Disney strong armed their way into the theater that he was promised for his movie. The irate director said:
“As of yesterday, Disney came to the ArcLight people and said ‘no, you are going to play ‘Star Wars’ in the Cinerama Dome for the entire holiday season, and if you don’t, if you honor your deal with the ‘Hateful Eight,’ we will not allow you to have ‘Star Wars,’ the biggest movie in the world, we will not allow you to show it at any of your Arclight movie theaters.”
Tarantino might have conjured up this rage because he wasn’t informed until the last minute that Disney’ previous agreements trumps his. There has been a longstanding agreement between the theater and Disney and advance tickets to “Star Wars” have been on sale for some time for that theater.
During his Disney rant Tarantino pointed out to Stern that the “The Hateful Eight” includes a logo of Cinerama in its opening credits. He went on to tell Stern that Disney was “dissing the director of his money maker “Pulp Fiction,” whose rights were once owned by the Mouse House,” reports Fox News.
