Since studios can’t destroy Orson Welles’ films anymore — continue shedding tears for “The Magnificent Ambersons,” and no, Welles’ cut is not on YouTube — they’ll settle on pissing on his grave instead.
Special effects house Drac Studios (best known for their work on “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button”) will be launching their first feature film, the 3D animation/live action hybrid “Christmas Tails.”
The film will be based on Robert X Leed’s self-published book about “how Santa’s dog saves Christmas” (no, we’re not joking).
In 1985 Leed got his friend, Welles, to narrate the story and recorded it on reel-to-reel tape that has been sitting in a closet ever since. Anxious to exploit that friendship for financial gain, under the guise of a “historic moment,” the narration will now be used in the film and be promoted as Welles’ last acting gig. There is a such a horrible idea, that we don’t know where to begin, but we hope that the notoriously litigious Beatrice Welles steps in and prevents this from happening.
When we first saw the vague THR headline we were hoping this was movement on one of Welles’ many long-lost cinema Rosetta stone, “The Other Side of the Wind,” but alas it was not to be. C’mon Peter Bogdanovich, where are you with that? Promises, promises…