Reports are hitting the internet that Grind House has shut down production due to cost overruns and schedule problems. Grind House is one of my more anticipated films – it teams Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez in an homage to 1970s exploitation films. Each director is working on a short film that’s supposed to be from that period, and in between features there will be fake trailers for other imaginary movies (and any fan of sploitation films know that the trailers are often better than the actual films).
Ironically it’s Rodriguez that’s causing the trouble, says Tarantino fansite The Quentin Tarantino Archives, who is getting their info from people on set and the Grind House Forum. The director who made his name as the king of fast and cheap has, according to reports, spent 50 million dollars already on his segment. An email supposedly from a crew member says, "I have been working on the film and I hate to say that the rumors are true. In fact …. many of the crew members went home already and the word on the set is that Rodriguez has gone over budget. There were days when we had 7 setups to shoot, but we usually would only get to shoot half of what was slated for the day.”
Is any of this true? I’ll be making calls first thing in the morning, as I am sure some other web types will be doing. I don’t know how to read the silence at Aint It Cool in regards to this issue – I would have assumed that if this wasn’t true Harry Knowles would be the issuer of a firm denial by now.
Here’s hoping this is all an April Fool’s joke gone wrong or late. While the evil schadenfreude side of my personality would like to see Rodriguez brought down by some bloat, I really want to see this movie get made. The good news, if the scoopers are to be believed, is that the film isn’t shut down forever, and that it will start up again for the QT segment.
Hopefully we’ll have updates on this story during the day Thursday.