His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass - The Truth (Help Support a Director's Cut and Sequel)

A video to support the release of both a director's cut and sequels to The Golden Compass, from Phillip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy.

Chris Weitz says 'It's the greatest professional regret that I have', so support him to allow a re-edit of the film by signing petitions:

http://www.petitiononline.com/iorekpan/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/gcs2010/petition.html

and also contacting Toby Emmerich (New Line Cinema's President & COO) directly via Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=558682976

In a nutshell - The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights boycotted the film, and the religious pressure led to extensive late edits by the studio without the directors' consent (Chris Weitz), cutting out and re-ordering crucial elements to the film, hence the mixed reviews from movie critics, who criticised it's pacing and confused plotting.

Bill Donohoe, who led the boycott, admitted he was 'delighted that the boycott worked', which perhaps was the case in the US, however internationally the film was a huge success financially, totalling $400 million.

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[StormyCProductions]

I'm sure you're absolutely right about a rough cut being out there already, but a lot of questions will be asked and certain people could get into a great deal of trouble if its uploaded onto YouTube or whatever. I'd still love to see it though and if it significantly improves the film!

[StormyCProductions]

Chris Weitz interview: Indiewire (June 2011)

"When I turned in my director's cut for "The Golden Compass," the studio concluded that I was trying to turn a popcorn movie into the world's most expensive art film; they fired my editor and took the cut from me."

[StormyCProductions]

Chris Weitz interview: The Wrap (Nov 2009) cont...

"...as soon as the shooting stopped and the first cut of the movie was presented, I was just hammered and my editor was fired and another editor brought on and gradually power was taken from me."

[StormyCProductions]

Chris Weitz interview: The Wrap (Nov 2009) -

"It was a terrible experience because I was able to shoot what I wanted to -- and then the cut of the movie was taken away from me and any reference to religion or religious ideas was removed. And the darkness and threat at the end of the story -- anything that made it not a happy, popcorn-type movie -- was removed. The voice of the key character was redone, all of this against my will."

[StormyCProductions]

The Guardian newspaper's interview with Sam Elliot is interesting, he states "The Catholic church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I'm concerned. It did incredible at the box office. Incredible. It took $85m (£52m) in the States (and over $300 million overseas). The Catholic church … lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off."

[Yonkers444]

Someone has the director's cut. Chris Weitz made a rough copy of this and showed to a few people before the final cut was made. Honestly I assume that this *might* accidentally be released on the internet for people to see.

There are legal issues here and there but the first draft of the movie has been released by Chris Weitz

[StormyCProductions]

@MichaelSxe555 After hunting around, the clearest answer I can find it on Wikipedia which states that 'Overseas rights to the film were sold to fund the $180 million production budget for the film, so most of these profits did not go to New Line. This has been cited as a potential "last straw" in Time Warner's decision to merge New Line Cinema into Warner Bros Pictures.'

So it seems that the rights were based on just the first film, it would be ludicrous to sell rights to films not yet made!

[MichaelSxe555]

@StormyCProductions Actually, I'm pretty sure I read it was the entire trilogy's rights were sold. At least from what I remember reading.

[StormyCProductions]

@MichaelSxe555 - Yes but only the rights for the first film not the trilogy, they should realise that there's an audience and huge profits to be made internationally for the sequels, which would recoup any losses for the first movie (It was obvious these films would do better overseas than in the US, so whoever gave the green light to sell the rights in the first place is either an idiot or had another agenda)...

[MichaelSxe555]

But New Line sold off the foreign rights and didn't make the profit from the foreign gross. It only made $70 million here in the US.