Harvey Scissorhands: 6 films ruined by Harvey Weinstein

The New York Times yesterday unveiled a damning expose of the infamous Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein, with accusations and revelations concerning decades of alleged sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour towards aspiring actresses and employees of his former studio Miramax Films.

While the expose is the first time many of these stories have made it to print, tales of Weinstein’s temper and ill-treatment of filmmakers has been legendary – many of them recounted in Peter Biskind’s must-read book Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film.

The book, published in 2004, tracks the Miramax domination of the Nineties, where the studio, founded by Weinstein and his brother Bob, produced and distributed blockbuster indies including Pulp Fiction, Sex, Lies and Videotape and Shakespeare in Love.

But along with financial and critical acclaim came a host of shocking stories of nightmare filmmaking, where tyrannical Weinstein behaviour resulted in unhappy directors, unnecessary reshoots and edits, and countless films dumped with little Weinstein support.

Occurring so often that Harvey Weinstein has long been dubbed “Harvey Scissorhands” for his eagerness to hack films to pieces, here are just six of the many films to have been engulfed in explosive Weinstein drama over the years.

Mimic (1997)

Miramax had form with harshly editing the work of new filmmakers, cutting their films to ribbons, barely releasing them, and then letting directors die on the vine on the heels of a costly flop. Guillermo del Toro was, at one point, earmarked to be yet another one of those doomed directors.

His first American film, 1997’s cockroach horror picture Mimic, experienced a hellish production, with Bob Weinstein, then head of Miramax’s sister studio Dimension Films, attempting to get him fired.

When Bob saw early footage from the film, he complained that the scenes weren’t scary enough, and that the tone was all wrong. He eventually barged onto the Toronto set, attempting to instruct del Toro how to direct a movie. Eventually he decided that he had to fire him.

“Maybe we’re making two different movies,” del Toro said. “No, you’re not making a good movie,” was Weinstein’s reply. “You’re going home tonight, we’re gonna pick up the pieces tomorrow with somebody else.”

It was only an intervention from Mimic’s leading lady Mira Sorvino that led to del Toro staying put. The actress, who had just won an Oscar for her role in the Miramax film Mighty Aphrodite, threatened to pull out of the film if del Toro’s vision wasn’t respected, and even roped her then-boyfriend Quentin Tarantino, Miramax’s golden child, into defending her director. Eventually the Weinsteins backed down, but still insisted on getting final cut on the film.

Producer BJ Rack told Biskind: “I’ve worked with Paul Verhoeven and I’ve produced a James Cameron movie, but Mimic was the hardest professional experience I’ve ever had. I felt like I was in a prisoner of war camp.”

Wide Awake (1998)

Like Guillermo del Toro, M Night Shyamalan was also marked for career destruction by a Weinstein. Shyamalan’s first major studio film wasn’t 1999’s The Sixth Sense, but in fact a little-seen religious dramedy called Wide Awake, about a precocious youngster attempting to prove the existence of God and starring Rosie O’Donnell as a kindly nun. Shot in 1995, it wasn’t released until 1998, where it was dumped in select cinemas and grossed a horrid $282,000.

Declaring himself the new Spielberg hadn’t ingratiated Shyamalan to Harvey Weinstein, but his reaction to Shyamalan’s peppy arrogance was decidedly overblown: Weinstein reportedly “destroyed” him and made him cry, before taking over the film’s reshoots and edits.

O’Donnell, then a major star with an enormously successful talk show and a thriving movie career, was outraged at Shyamalan’s treatment. During a conference call with Weinstein, she attempted to get through to him: “Listen, Harvey, you can’t steamroll this poor filmmaker. He’s an artist. I’m an artist. You’re just the guy who sells it.”

Weinstein reportedly exploded: “You’re some f------ artist? You’re just a f------ talk show host! Like you would f------ know. You b----! You c---!” Another source added that Weinstein called O’Donnell a “big fat f------ cow”.

Recognising the error of his ways, Weinstein sent O'Donnell flowers, but she rejected them, demanding back the rights to another project she had in the works at Miramax. “To my grave I will go,” O’Donnell said. “I will never speak to him again.”

54 (1998)

Harvey Weinstein has also gained a reputation for endlessly hyping up one of his projects while it’s being filmed, before slashing it to pieces once it’s been completed. Case in point: 54, a buzzy Seventies drama revolving around the iconic Manhattan nightclub Studio 54.

Designed as an ambisexual, cocaine-fueled disco movie along the lines of 1997’s Boogie Nights, the film landed up-and-comers of the era like Ryan Phillippe, Neve Campbell and Salma Hayek, along with Mike Myers in the role of the club’s depressive co-founder Steve Rubell. It remains the comic’s sole dramatic performance, and for a time garnered him Oscar buzz.

The Weinsteins, as a result, were incredibly enthusiastic, imagining 54 as a dark, sexy indie smash. But in the months after 54 finished shooting, the film’s stars were propelled to the A-list, leading Weinstein to suddenly invisage the movie as a mainstream hit. Disastrous test screenings convinced him to take the scissors to the film.

“But they didn’t test it in the cities,” director Mark Christopher told Variety. “They tested it out in malls in Long Island and places like that, and that audience was split between the cool people who loved it and the homophobes in the audience.”

Weinstein was reportedly concerned, and spent $4 million on reshoots, which Christopher was contractually obligated to direct. These entirely changed the movie’s tone, however. An upbeat voiceover was added and the bisexuality of Phillippe’s character was almost entirely excised, as was a group sex scene between him, Hayek and Breckin Meyer.

Meanwhile, Neve Campbell, then a major star as a result of the Scream franchise, had her role significantly beefed up. What once was a fleeting cameo as a soap opera actress became a major supporting role as a love interest for Phillippe. Suddenly a film that initially revolved around a bisexual love triangle between Phillippe, Hayek and Meyer was edited into one revolving around a rather heterosexual love triangle between Phillippe, Hayek and Campbell.

In effect, 54 was drastically de-gayed, and the film that limped into cinemas was a critical and commercial flop. The speculation that the film could score Mike Myers an Oscar nod went kaput practically overnight.

Christopher was eventually able to restore his original film with a bootleg version screened at the 2008 Outfest Festival. Miramax Films, now under new management, then funded an official restoration of Christopher’s director’s cut, releasing it digitally in 2015.

The Yards (2000)

Despite James Gray receiving accolades for his debut film Little Odessa in 1994, Weinstein had no problem with tussling with his vision when it came to his follow-up. Released in 2000, The Yards was a crime thriller starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron, but Weinstein felt the film was too gloomy and depressing. He demanded Gray shoot a new ending, and even recited new dialogue over the phone that Gray had to edit into his script.

Despite the changes, Weinstein still buried the film, keeping it on the shelf for two years before giving it a limited release in 2000. It somewhat inevitably bombed.

As a result of their earlier conflict, Gray was surprised when Weinstein later purchased his film The Immigrant at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. To the surprise of no one, the exact same events happened again. Weinstein attempted to convince Gray to make significant changes, but, unlike The Yards, Gray had final cut on his film, and refused to bend to Weinstein’s wishes.

“Harvey [tried to] get me to change the ending, remove the last shot, and a number of things like that, which I felt would have ruined the movie,” Gray told The Telegraph. “So I said no, and that’s the reason the film was released the way it was.”

Weinstein abandoned a planned December 2013 release for the film, and ended up dumping it on four screens in May 2014, despite a starry cast that included Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard.

“I didn’t intend for Harvey to buy and release The Immigrant – I thought it was a terrible idea,” Gray said. “He bought the film without me knowing! He bought it from the equity people who raised the money for me in the States. And I told them it was a terrible idea, but I had no say over the matter.”

The Golden Bowl (2000)

It was a Merchant Ivory costume drama based on a Henry James novel, with Uma Thurman, Kate Beckinsale, Anjelica Huston and Jeremy Northam among the starry cast – yet you’ve likely never heard of The Golden Bowl. The film, pitched as a major Oscar contender in 2000, was sunk by Weinstein, whose behaviour after the film was completed was so bad that director James Ivory bought the film back from Miramax for $5 million. This, ultimately, left the film without the finances to launch a significant awards campaign, and the film was released with a whimper.

Weinstein, who was reportedly hands-off during the film’s pre-production stages and during filming, baffled Ivory by testing the film, like 54, at a New Jersey strip mall – hardly populated by the kind of audience who would traditionally embrace a thorny British costume drama. When negative reactions came in, Weinstein demanded that Ivory significantly cut the film down, and zeroed in on Thurman’s performance for particular criticism.

Deciding she was “over-the-top and overdramatic,” Weinstein confronted Thurman at a party, where he derided her attempts to convince him to merely edit the film and her performance rather than hack the film to pieces. After telling Thurman to her face what he thought of her work, she left the party in tears, hurt that Weinstein would treat her so badly considering their history with Pulp Fiction.

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Thurman’s then-husband Ethan Hawke told Biskind, “I’ve heard that so much, ‘She’s a part of the Miramax family!’ Yeah, until your movie doesn’t work, and then you’re not part of the family at all. You’re not even a distant cousin. It’s really fraudulent.”

Speaking in 2005, Ivory described Weinstein as a large, restless and overly ambitious man - “unlovely in manner and speech, possessing no artistic talent of any kind”. All that the producer had was money and the power it gave him, Ivory claimed. “That he is emotionally 12 years old doesn’t help matters.” He also compared him to a playground bully who twists people’s arms “until they scream and kneel down in the dirt at his feet”.

Fanboys (2009)

Another film to get chewed up in the Weinstein meat-grinder, the Kristen Bell comedy Fanboys was initially envisaged as a moving tribute to Star Wars fandom, featuring cameos from cult figures like Carrie Fisher, Seth Rogen and Billy Dee Williams. The film, set in 1999, sees a group of teens attempting to break into Skywalker Ranch to steal a rough cut of The Phantom Menace, as one of the group will likely die of terminal cancer before the film hits cinemas. George Lucas even gave the film his blessing.

But Harvey Weinstein wasn’t too interested in the whole cancer thing, assembling a new edit of the film that entirely cut out references to terminal illness. He also ordered reshoots under the tutelage of a new director, Adam Sandler favourite Steve Brill, which increased the raunchy jokes and scatological humour. When fans caught wind of the changes, Brill retaliated by calling them “losers” on online message boards.

Weinstein then began screening two versions of the film to test audiences, one that followed director Kyle Newman’s original vision, and another that was more along the lines of an American Pie movie, only with Star Wars nerds.

Newman’s version of Fanboys eventually came out, three years after it finished filming, but barely on any screens. It also went straight to DVD in the UK. Producer Dana Brunetti told the Hollywood Reporter that he spent “three f—ing years [with] this movie being held up and never being released. When it’s finally released, Harvey just put it on 10 screens and said, ‘If the fans like it, they’ll come out and see it.’”