When I was a kid, my mom had me watching old movies instead of what was currently on. I did not see the original SW trilogy until i was 11. I saw my first Freddie Kruger movie on the last day of 8th grade.
Anyways the first time I watched Anchors Aweigh, she was super jazzed when she got to introduce me to this crossover. It was not until I was older and started to gravitate to my particular fandoms that I was able to appreciate how specatacular this was to her as a child and growing up.
Gene Kelly and Jerry. How fucking cool is that?
So the US government got 10% royalty rights to a Passion of the Christ prequel, from a plea deal with a drug dealer that extorted those rights by kidnapping the owners daughter.
This story is just bizarre. Sinkdeep alerted us to the details, which seem to make a better story for a movie than the script at the heart of this story. Let’s start from the beginning. You’ve got Benedict Fitzgerald, who wrote the screenplay for The Passion of the Christ, the controversial Mel Gibson movie that made over $600 million. Fitzgerald apparently wrote a “prequel” script to that movie, called Mary, Mother of Christ. However, at some point, Fitzgerald ran into some money trouble, and in defaulting on a $340,000 business loan from a company called Macri, he ended up giving the script to Macri’s owner, Arturo Madrigal. Okay, so now Madrigal has the script… but not for long.
Jorge Vazquez Sanchez, a smuggler for Mexican drug cartel, apparently hatched a plan to extort the script out of Madrigal. This was done by having some “associates” kidnap Madrigal’s brother, in Mexico. In exchange for his release, Madrigal agreed to hand over the rights to the script. Vazquez, script in hand, somehow then sold the screenplay to a Hollywood production company now known as Aloe Entertainment (then known as Proud Mary Entertainment) for close to $1 million with a 10% royalty on any profits from the movie. From there, Aloe was able to get the wheels moving on a full on production, with famed pastor Joel Osteen acting as exec producer. Filming was expected to happen later this year.
Throwing a bit of a wrench into all of this is that the US government came down on Vazquez for his various illegal activities, leading him to cop a plea deal in which he gave the US government the 10% royalty rights in the screenplay. He also had to plead guilty for money laundering and extortion. But in giving the feds his cut of the profits, he may have decreased his jail time from 40 years down to 7.
Of course, the story doesn’t end there. Apparently, minutes after officially making the plea in court (while still in court), Madrigal slapped Vazquez with a lawsuit of his own, saying that Vazquez had no right to sell the screenplay to Aloe in the first place, and he wants the rights to the script returned. Indeed, it would seem that the script and the deal are ill-gotten gains.
What’s really bizarre here is the feds role in all of this. First of all, why would it ever want a cut of the profits in a Hollywood movie? Second, wouldn’t it realize that the movie rights were obtained through illegal means — and shouldn’t it then have been the responsibility of the feds to return the rights to the script back to Madrigal? Either way, it seems pretty bizarre that the Justice Department appears to have given this guy a deal for a much lower jail sentence in exchange for some profits from a Hollywood movie the US attorneys had to know the guy had no right to.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120512/02324318896/us-government-gets-10-royalty-passion-christ-prequel-plea-deal-with-mexican-drug-smuggler.shtml
Fuck you, pay me
Orson Welles jams with Laurel and Hardy
It is raining today in the San Fernando Valley. The way the air feels and smells after is great.
Did you know that Gene had a 104 degree fever while filming this? Dude was a stud.
My mom had me watching these movies as a kid instead of modern stuff. I did not see Star wars until I was 12. I was in 8th grade before I saw my first Freddie Kruger movie (it was the 3D one). I had seen The Sound of Music, Daddy Long Legs, Anchor Away, From Here to Eternity, and other assorted classics though. At the time I did not appreciate it much, but looking back on it now I am glad for it.
