I’m not sure if you’re heard about this title issue The Weinstein Co. is facing with regard to their upcoming Oscar contender, The Butler, but if you haven’t, don’t worry, it’s absurd.
The short of it is Warner Bros. is staking a copyright claim to the title The Butler because of a 1916 short film of the same name they acquired many, many years ago. The MPAA ruled The Weinstein Co. couldn’t use the word “butler” at all, and if they were to run ads with The Butler as the film’s title they would incur $25,000 a day in penalties.
Harvey Weinstein was on “CBS Morning News” this morning to discuss the issue when Norah O’Donnell asked, “[Warner Bros.” re-registered [the title] as recently as 2010. Why are they wrong?”
Harvey replied:
It’s not that they’re wrong. It’s just, a grace note would have said, this is a movie about Civil Rights. 28 individual investors financed the movie. And 122 times in the history of movies, titles have been used and repeated. And our understanding with them was that this was just going to be the simple process that it always is. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy have a movie out called Heat. Jason Statham is shooting a movie called Heat Bob DeNiro and Al Pacino made a movie called Heat and ten years before that Burt Reynolds made a movie called Heat. And Unstoppable has been done 5 times. 122 instances. These guys told us they were going to do the normal thing, the normal business they practice and I think there’s an ulterior motive.
An “ulterior motive” you say? Whatever could that be? Weinstein elaborates saying, “I was asked by two execs at Warner Brothers, which I’m happy testify to, that if I gave them back the rights to The Hobbit they would drop the claim. For a 1916 short? This was used as a bullying tactic… What the hell do they need the title for? They’re not making a movie called The Butler. There’s a 1916 silent movie. Come on. If we were watching this as a movie we’d say this smells. Where’s the culprit at the end of this?”
If you don’t know the details between Weinstein’s involvement with The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings franchise you can surely find it online or just seek out Peter Biskind’s “[amazon asin=”0684862581″ text=”Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film”]”, which I can’t recommend enough.
Otherwise, here’s a clip from The Butler featuring Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey and David Oyelowo. The film, most likely as The Butler, will hit theaters on August 16.
