You might have forgotten, but this year’s Cannes Film Festival opener “Grace Of Monaco” was originally supposed to be released last fall, and then was pushed to this spring. However, last October, reports surfaced that producer Harvey Weinstein and director Olivier Dahan were battling over the cut of the film, with the filmmaker even more dismayed that Harv actually doesn’t have any money invested in the actual production—he’s merely the U.S. distributor. The battle caused the film to be removed from the release calendar, but long after, it was selected for Cannes. So, no problem then, right? Wrong.
Variety reports that Harv is now considering dropping the movie entirely, as he is still not happy with the film Dahan has completed. To recap, the film stars Nicole Kidman as Hollywood legend Grace Kelly, with the 1962-set story detailing her involvement with the dispute between Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and France’s Charles De Gaulle as the threat of invasion looms. Sound pretty unsexy, right? Well, perhaps it’s a not a shock then that Harv apparently wants Dahan to include more about her time in Hollywood, but also add political context too. It’s not known if these sequences were shot or would need to be shot.
Making things more complicated, in France, directors have final cut, however, producers are open to letting Harv do his thing and release a U.S. cut. Making things even further complicated, is that “Grace Of Monaco” opens abroad on May 14th and will start hitting other territories soon after. Lastly, Harv is viewing this one as a potential awards season horse, and we’d wager if it’s not going to meet his expectations, he’s not interested.
So, is Harv really going to drop a movie that stars Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly? Or is this just more savvy maneuvering from Harv to get as much publicity as possible before the big, splashy, red carpet premiere? Time will tell.
