Normally, when a panel or discussion is pulled from a festival schedule, it’s due to the project not being completed or maybe some sort of filmmaker squabble with officials from the event. But I would go out on a limb and say the situation that forced Fantasia Fest to pull Neil Marshall’s upcoming Q&A from the event is a first for any festival.
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According to Deadline, both Marshall and officials at Fantasia have “mutually agreed” to pull a Q&A for “The Reckoning” from the upcoming Canadian film event. This comes after a firestorm of headlines surrounding Marshall and his reported partner, actress Charlotte Kirk, and the Vice Chairman of NBCUniversal, Ron Meyer.
In an attempt to make this incredibly complicated and somewhat non-movie-related legal situation as succinct as possible, here are the basics.
Ron Meyer, an executive at NBCUniversal, recently stepped down from his role in the studio after admitting to making an out-of-court monetary deal with a woman that he had an affair with eight years ago and who has allegedly been attempting to extort him in the interim. After this news, it was reported that the woman at the center of the alleged situation is Charlotte Kirk. And reports also claim that Kirk, along with her partner, Neil Marshall, has been using the situation with Meyer as a way to attempt to force him to greenlight their projects. Marshall, of course, denies this happened.
However, the full story is still unclear, but Marshall is now being dragged into stories about this insane situation with Kirk, who not only is in a relationship with the filmmaker but also stars in the “The Reckoning” and co-wrote the feature with the director. Needless to say, this is the type of topic that Fantasia Fest would prefer not loom over its digital event that begins later this month.
As far as what this means for Fantasia Fest, the event still has plenty of great panels and discussions lined up. But there will be a sizeable hole in the lineup, thanks to the departure of Marshall’s panel. “The Reckoning” is the first for the filmmaker since his reboot of “Hellboy” and was set to be his return to his true horror roots, where he made a name for himself with “The Descent.”
If you want more news about the Ron Meyer/Charlotte Kirk/Neill Marshall situation, there are plenty of stories floating around.
*An earlier version of this article erroneously wrote that Marshall’s “The Reckoning” was pulled from Fantasia, instead of just the Q&A. We regret the error.