Sometimes things that happen in a movie touch a little too close to home for something that’s happening (or happened) in real life, and the movie idea gets scrapped… or a finished movie gets delayed. It happened after 9/11 with several projects that had terrorist themes in them… and it looks like its happening to the new highly buzzed about Ben Affleck film “Gone Baby Gone“. Our friends over at Cinematical give us the following:
Buena Vista International UK has suspended the release of the film indefinitely due to similarities between the flick and the real-life case of Madeline McCann, the British girl who’s been missing since early May. Though the case is a fairly popular topic here in the States, I gather it’s a much bigger deal in Britain — especially now that the two parents have become official suspects in their daughter’s disappearance from a Portuguese apartment. Based on a book by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), Gone, Baby, Gone follows two detectives tracking the case of a missing four year-old girl, and how it subsequently affects them both professionally and personally.
This is a tough situation. The case in question has been getting a lot of coverage over here, but I guess the media frenzy over it is even bigger across the pond and touching a nerve a little more. It’s not an easy thing to try to navigate what culture will accept at any given moment… at the same time you can’t be held captive by the whims of what might offend some. There is a fine line to balance between the two.
I respect the decision to delay the film for now in the midst of everything going on… I mean you don’t want to tick off your potential audience. At the same time i hope they don’t delay it too long. There isn’t an issue out there that won’t offened, or hurt someone… so you have to be careful about letting that dictate your creative and business process.
As a side note, i LOVE that poster… and the tag line is terrific “Everyone wants the truth… until they find it”
