Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty; Alexander Koerner/Getty
Kevin Smithsaid his 1999 movieDogmais not available on streaming becauseHarvey Weinsteinis “holding it hostage.”
The director, 52,told The Wrapthat disgraced Hollywood producer Weinstein — who iscurrently serving a 23-year prison sentencein New York, guilty of criminal sexual act in the first degree and rape in the third degree — sold the film’s rights to himself and released it via the Shining Excalibur company.
“In order to tell the story, unfortunately, I’m gonna have to say the name that nobody wants to hear anymore. But, of course, Harvey Weinstein figures into the story,” Smith said.
After becoming a relative box office success at the time,Dogmawas eventually released on DVD and Blu-ray and was once available in digital form until “the rights lapsed,” Smith said. Now it’s nowhere to be found, and copies of the discontinued Blu-ray version are sold for about $100 online, The Wrap reported.
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About the time the rights lapsed and the movie disappeared (and before Weinstein’s public downfall and conviction), Smith said he doesn’t think Weinstein “realized that he still owned that movie. I don’t think he realized that it went out of public distribution or anything like that.”
“He was calling not because he wanted to do anything withDogma. He wanted to see if I was one of the people whohad spoken to theNew York Times. I hadn’t, because I didn’t know any of that stuff,” Smith said.
Smith said he later “found out that [Weinstein] was trying to sell the rights to [Dogma]” for $5 million. Smith said he would “have nothing to do with” the project if Weinstein was “still attached to it.” He even sought to buy back the movie, which he “felt very dirty about because we didn’t want to give him money.”
His offers were too low for Weinstein, he claimed.
“Look, I loveDogmaas much as the next guy but a) I don’t have $5 million and b) that’s not what the market bears anymore. We live in a streaming era. The last I heard was from a different company, saying he wouldn’t sell me my movie back. I thought, ‘What else can I do?’ There’s not much. You can make a public stink, but I don’t think that guy reads the news anymore.”
The director, whoseClerks IIIis now in theaters and previously explained the Weinstein rights issue in atweet back in 2019, added, “My movie about heaven is in limbo.”
source: people.com
