Tuesday, March 1, 2011 at 11:09AM 'The King's Speech' Oscar Winners Colin Firth and Tom Hooper Speak Out About New PG-13 Edit
By now, everyone should be well aware that the big winner at this weekend's Oscars ceremony was The King's Speech. And, if you're not aware of this, what are you doing on our site? The R-rated period piece following King George VI's battle with his stammer won statues for Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, Leading Actor, and of course, Best Picture. Now that the film has cemented itself in cinematic history, talk has moved to Harvey Weinstein's planned family-friendly PG-13 cut of the film.
The uber-producer made the public very aware of his plans to rerelease the film that won four Oscars and made over $100 million domestically sans f-bombs. At first, Weinstein's claim to make the film more accessible carried a little weight, but now that the R-rated for language film has been accepted on the largest stage possible for film it just seems like a cash grab. So what do those creatively invested in the film think?
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with newly crowned Best Director Tom Hooper at the Governor's Ball Sunday night after the ceremony and asked him what he thought. The director quickly responded, "I haven't seen it yet." Which means that every alteration was made without his consent or participation.
The most deserving winner of the night, Best Actor Colin Firth, was quite a bit more candid with his response:
"I don’t support it. I think the film has its integrity as it stands… It serves a purpose. I’m not someone who’s casual about that kind of language. I take my children to football [soccer] games. I hate hearing that kind of language in their ears, but I won’t deny them the experience of a live game… But in the context of the film, it couldn’t be more edifying, more appropriate. It’s not vicious or insulting. It’s not in the context that might offend… I still haven’t met the person who’d object to it."
And I don't see how anyone, other than Harvey Weinstein, could disagree. There's still no word on when the PG-13 version will hit theaters or how they plan to market it. I'm sure that if it ends up in theaters at all at this point, it'll only stay there for a week or two then end up as an alternate version on the DVD. I can't wait to hear Weinstein's response as he and Firth have had a very good working relationship for many years now. And, I'd love to hear Oscar winning screenwriter David Seidler's thoughts seeing as he wrote all those f-bombs.
Reader Comments (3)
This is ridiculous. Besides the fact that those scenes are perfectly in context within the film, how many people under the age of 18 does Weinstein really think are going to want to see this movie? I mean no offense to the film, it's an excellent movie, but I just don't think there are that many kids or high schoolers that are interested in this kind of film. I doubt it will really make very much more money if this does happen.
Both my grandchildren,f 16 and 12 have seen the movie here in Sydney, Australia, they saw it at an open air cinema in a Sydney Park as part of the summer Cinema In The Park Season. They both enjoyed the movie and as they both said after the movie everyone of the more than 1,000 people there laughed at the swearing scene, and they all cheered when The King finished his speech. To either delete or dub over this scene will spoil the integrity of the scene and the movie.
An impressive period drama. And the performances of the great cast are superb as expected. The movie totally deserved the oscars. And without any doubt it was the best among nominees. However It is not a movie that can be in list of best movies ever. But one of this years bests.