Yes. Let that sink in if you were not aware.
Fanboys is a film about the way-back years of 1997. Right before Episode 1 of the prequels are released, a group of friends decide to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a copy for their friend, who is dying of cancer. There is now a chopped version that removes all mention of cancer, because who wants cancer in their comedies? So now it’s just a group of friends who try to steal a movie, and hijinks ensue.
From IMDB
An announcement by The Weinstein Co. that it now plans to release two versions of its comedy Fanboys — one featuring the original cut; the other the cut ordered by Harvey Weinstein — has failed to mollify supporters of the original version, who are threatening to boycott and picket the Weinstein’s Superhero Movie, which opens on Friday. “This [the Weinstein announcement] is more about avoiding picket lines at Superhero than it was about making a decision about the release of our movie,” Kevin Mann, one of the producers, told the Hollywood Reporter. The movie concerns a group of Star Wars fans who break into George Lucas’s studios to see an advance screening of The Phantom Menace. In the original version, one of the fans is battling cancer. In the revised one, references to cancer have been removed. “The original reason we wanted to get involved with this script was because it was a comedy with heart,” Mann told the trade paper. “In my opinion, when the cancer was taken out, the heart went with it.” On their website, http://committed.to/stopdarthweinstein, fans who had seen the rough cut of the movie and/or clips at Star Wars conventions, vowed that their protest “will continue until the Weinstein Co. announces that they are returning control of Fanboys to the Star Wars fans who made it, releasing the original version in theaters and doing away with their anti-fan version of the film altogether.”
Now, I am not a superfans of the Weinsteins due to some of their shenanigans when they would buy up rights for Asian films and just sit on them at Miramax (and then release chopped up versions) but this is just dumb. This is nothing but fanboy overreaction due to the film’s initial pimpage on Aintitcoolnews.com and a few other places. And the random few guys who think Veronica Mars dressed as Slave Girl Leia is something that they want to associate with cancer due to “That’s what the Hutts like!”
AICN’s own Moriarty has seen both the cancer and non-cancer film:
And regarding the much-debated “cancer or no cancer†debate… it ultimately doesn’t matter, and that’s a pretty damning statement about the movie. Again… we’re talking about execution and not intent here. In theory, a film about a group of friends trying to give a dying buddy his last wish could be very sweet and moving and funny and all sorts of other things. Could be. But the cancer here is mentioned a few times, but it barely seems to affect Linus. Marquette may be the main problem for me overall, since it’s his lack of chemistry with Huntington and his seemingly consequence-free cancer that bother me. The fact that it was so simple to delete it from the film and still have the film play pretty much exactly the same should say everything that needs to be said about it.
Fanboys were unimpressed and sent threatening letters to Fanboys director Steve Brill, who responded by threatening them right back.
So Superhero movie was released, and did terrible because it looked terrible and those spoof movies are overplayed. Thus the fanboys declared victory. That’s like declaring victory if the Earth successfully orbits the sun for another year. The actual protesting at theaters was weak to non-existent. It was easier to find Waldo than a Fanboys-supporting Protester.
IMDB
Fans of the as-yet-unreleased movie Fanboys who launched an Internet campaign against Superhero Movie in reaction to reports that The Weinstein Company had reedited and reshot pertinent Fanboys scenes claimed victory Sunday after Superhero Movie’s disappointing opening. Small groups of protesters staged a demonstration in Los Angeles and New York Friday, even as they stepped up their campaign against Harvey Weinstein on their website at www.StopDarthWeinstein.com. “If you release your mutilated anti-fan version of Fanboys in any form, you can look forward to a lifetime boycott of your studio by every Star Wars fan on the planet,” the site warned the Weinsteins. The Weinstein Co. said later that the fans’ reaction had little to do with Superhero Movie’s box-office performance. About eight protesters showed up at an AMC theater in Los Angeles and were taken out for pizza afterwards by Fanboys producer Matthew Perniciaro. Perniciaro later told the Hollywood Reporter: “We’ve been working on this movie for many years and if someone is going to take time out of their personal life and support our film, whatever that support may be, at the very least what we can do is say thank you and buy them a couple of slices of pizza.”
The website is even misquoted in the article, it’s really http://stopdarthweinstein.chris-marquette.com/
More reporting on the lack of support here
Where are things now? Boring. There will still be no cancer in the film, and if the cancer is removed that easily (easier than any real life cancer) than it didn’t play that key of a role in the first place. So screw it. That’s probably good, because if someone was deathly sick, and the last thing they saw was Jar Jar Binks and Anakin yelling “Yippee!” they’d be dead long before the mentioning of “Now this is pod racing.” The sequel to Fanboys should involve them trying to bury the film in a desert while being pursued by a pack of CGI racial caricatures from across the globe in alien form.
