Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson recently won the DGA award for directing “One Battle After Another,” making him a top contender ahead of the Academy Awards in March, but is now alongside composer Jonny Greenwood (a member of the acclaimed and beloved British band Radiohead), calling out the recent documentary “Melania” (focusing on First Lady, Melania Trump) for using music from their fashion world drama “Phantom Thread” and the pair now wants the Brett Ratner-directed doc to remove that segement.
Outlets such as Variety got their mitts on the official statement from Anderson and Greenwood, which reads:
“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from ‘Phantom Thread’ has been used in the ‘Melania’ documentary. While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use, which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result, Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.”
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There had been a couple controversties about the “Melania” doc (as you may expect from Trump world), including the hefty price tag from Jeff Bezos‘ Amazon, spending $75 million on acquiring ($40 million) and marketing the pic (another $35 million), which may see those costs end up eating up whatever money is earned from ticket sales (likely having more to do with trying to curry favor with the White House than anything else). This may be seen as part of this new era of billionaires and tech-world CEOs paying tributes to the Trump Administration as a way to get access, and attempts to get various government lawsuits against their companies dropped entirely.
Also, President Trump had reportedly pressured David Ellison‘s Paramount Skydance (owned by Trump donors) to back Ratner’s “Rush Hour 4” (with IP owners Warner Bros. taking a backseat on the sequel that would see Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker reunite) after the filmmaker made the doc about his third wife. In what could be seen as a reason why Ratner would further tarnish his reputation (after many claims of sexual misconduct and harassment were made by multiple women), to make what many see as a propaganda documentary to help clean up the image of the Trump Family in the wake of a slew of corruption allegations.
We’ll have to wait to see if Amazon, Universal, Ratner, and others will comply with the request before any of this leads to lawyers, which may be coming next.
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