I’ve taken enough of my colleagues to task about bad reporting that when it comes time for me to eat some crow, I must do it with as humility and good humor as possible. It gets easier when the correction comes from a guy as nice as Seth Rogen.
Over the weekend I heard from some sources that an aspect of my piece about Observe and Report, where I said the studio was concerned about the movie’s dark and edgy tone, wasn’t true. I was told that the studio hadn’t even seen the movie. I didn’t know if these sources, who were closer to the studio end of things, were giving me the straight story, since my initial report came from a trusted source who was in the know. So when I sat down with Seth Rogen today for Zack & Miri Make a Porno, I wanted to get the full story. Here’s the exchange:
I talked to some people who have seen Observe & Report, and they’re saying some really great things about it.
I know you did. I read that article. I think it’s fucking great. I couldn’t be more proud of it.
But I’ve also talked to people close to the production who told me that Warner Bros is kind of concerned about how dark it is.
Warner Bros has actually not seen the movie yet. But the concerns they may have at that time could be somewhat founded! [laughs] It’s a dark, strange movie. Yeah, I think your piece hit the nail on the head in a lot of ways, except that they haven’t seen the movie, that was the one piece of information that was off. They’re going to see it, and it plays well in a theater, which is the saving grace of it. Although test numbers are something that can be debated with various quadrants and who your audience is and whatnot, but when you’re in the theater I feel like you can tell it’s doing something. All I can say is that I love it. As much as people say about Pineapple, ‘How could they get away with this movie?’ this movie is REALLY like ‘How did they get away with this movie?’ It shocks me!
I love it. I’m so happy for Jody with this movie, and I’m so proud of him and happy that he got to make that movie at a studio. It’s crazy. And I don’t think they’ll ruin it. It’s so far in a direction that they’ll have to neuter it so much to make it go the other direction that it would be just impossible, and I think for them it’s not worth ruining the relationships they’d have to ruin in order to do that.
So consider this a retraction of that aspect of the story. But not the fact that Observe & Report is looking to be a potential classic.