Dubious Fanboy Victory: Trade Roughage 08/25/08

By Karina Longworth on March 25, 2008 at 8:57 am

Hollywood is sad, and the producers of FANBOYS are mad. Also: Christine Vachon meets Fidel Castro.

Get out your violins: Hollywood is depressed! Seems that an expected post-WGA strike production boom hasn’t happened, due to some mix of the shitty economy and impending SAG-strike anxiety. An anonymous lawyer quoted in this story describes the situation thusly: “There’s a huge amount of crankiness right now, and everybody — particularly agents — feels like they’re getting screwed.”
The Weinstein Company, acquiescing to protests from Star Wars nerds, has announced they’ll release both the director’s version of Fanboys (which includes a subplot about cancer), and the studio’s cancer-free cut on DVD. The nerds have yet to release a statement, but Fanboys producer Keith Mann is not pleased. “This is more about avoiding picket lines at [Weinstein's Superhero Movie, which opens this weekend] than it was about making a decision about the release of our movie,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Killer Films and Moxie Films are joining forces to spin a feature out of Anthony DePalma’s book, The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert Matthews of the New York Times.