Caffeinated Clint
Lost Alec Baldwin/Jennifer Love Hewitt movie emerges
Update : So anyway, Variety says the film is actually getting a theatrical release. Now that makes MORE sense. Says the trade, Bob Yari’s distribution arm, Yari Film Group Releasing, has bought the embattled film and is planning to distribute it to theaters in the spring.
The exec will build a campaign that he hopes will convey to auds what has gotten lost in the press about pic’s backstory: It’s a “lighthearted comedy” but nonetheless “a message movie about how there are few shortcuts in life.”
Yari won’t recut the film, but says he will release a different version than the one he believed caused Baldwin to walk away.
While Baldwin has disavowed any connection to the picture — indeed, Alan Smithee is currently listed as director — Yari said he would extend an olive branch to the helmer-thesp by showing him the latest cut. “We’d love for him to be involved in supporting this film,” Yari said.
Yari acknowledged the movie could be a tough sell. “It’s very hard to judge how it will perform, because who knows how the history is going to affect the current perception. The public is very savvy.”
After quite a few years sitting in a vault somewhere, Alec Baldwin’s – a film most famous because a) there was so deep legal shit going down at the time with the film’s investors and as a consequence it was never released b) Baldwin was sucking face with co-star Jennifer Love Hewitt off-set at the time – directorial debut, “The Devil and Daniel Webster”, will finally see the light of day this year.
According to the NY Post, Starz Cable will premiere the film under its new title “Shortcut to Happiness”. Baldwin will no longer be credited with directing the movie. (Shit, it must be pretty shite if Baldwin’s not putting his name to it – he’d take credit for a hamburger commercial he appeared in as an extra, any other time).
Baldwin plays a struggling writer who sells his soul to the devil (Jennifer Love Hewitt) for fame and fortune. Anthony Hopkins plays the powerful chief of a publishing house. It was assumed in cinema circles that the movie never got theatrical release because it stank. But Baldwin told reporters three years ago it had been seized by the feds. “Some of the film’s investors are being investigated for bank fraud,” he explained. “They claimed they had the money to make the movie but it turned out they didn’t, so while we were making the movie they were bouncing checks all over New York.” Producer Bob Yari evidently straightened out the mess.
