Dysfunctional Phone Booth Joel Schumacher's directorial venture is further delayed

Arthur J Pais

The first time the release of Phone Booth was postponed had nothing to do with the Washington DC sniper who took several lives. Producer Twentieth Century Fox wanted the $12 million film to be released after Steven Spielberg's Minority Report because big guns at Fox felt that the Spielberg film would make newcomer Colin Farrell a big name.

While Farrell played a detective in Minority Report, he plays a flashy, conniving and amoral publicist targeted by a shooter who wants to punish people for their transgressions. They are lured into the phone booth and then threatened to be shot dead if they hang up. Farrell's character is forced to bare his soul and own up for his misdeeds.

Worried by the fear triggered by the invisible sniper and possibility of copycat serial killers, the studio has postponed the film's release. The film, directed by Joel Schumacher, was to open November 15. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Some viewers may think that the producers over-reacted. But the director and the stars of the film went along with the studio's decision. The film joins half a dozen films whose release was postponed after 9/11, with the studio executives fearful that an audience preoccupied with violence and threat of violence would not embrace films dealing with similar themes.

The fear and thought of the sniper could not affect the box-office of the documentary Bowling For Columbine, which examines American preoccupation with violence and guns. The film, which opened in New York and Los Angeles to full house business last Friday, is slowly expanding to other cities in the coming weeks.

A small budget movie, Ted Bundy, about a real life killer to whom the term 'serial killer' was applied for the first time, continues to run in art houses across the country. The movie, released in early September, was hailed by Los Angeles Times as 'a crisp and chilling study'. There are no plans to withdraw it from circulation because of Washington DC attacks.

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Schumacher told reporters in Toronto that Phone Booth is about a man with a warped mind but it was not just another routine thriller. It had to do a lot with accountability, he added. Many people rightly felt there was little accountability in the world. The people who have taken to Enron to bankruptcy, for instance, were not held accountable the way ordinary people are held responsible, he said. He also said he wasn't advocating the course of action the sniper took in his movie.

His feelings were echoed by Kiefer Sutherland who plays the man with the mysterious voice. There should be accountability in all walks of life including marriage, Sutherland said.

Fox has not said when the film will be released. It got decidedly mixed reviews at Toronto and the influential trade publication Variety said while the film was glossy and fast-moving, it was not emotionally satisfying and could enjoy a brief run.

Schumacher also directed Bad Company, an action-filled comedy about two mismatched American agents trying to disarm terrorists in New York. The film's December 2001 release was postponed by six months because the distributor felt that films dealing with terrorism would not do well at the box-office. The $75 million film, starring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock, collected plenty of bad reviews and just about $50 million worldwide. It bombed, many trade experts say, because it was inherently a stinker.

The Tim Allen and Rene Russo film, Big Trouble, a comedy about smuggling nuclear warheads on a jetliner, also had its release postponed. The critically slammed $45 million movie directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) lived up to its title, grossing a paltry $25 million worldwide.

However, The Sum of All Fears, in which CIA analyst Jack Ryan hunts down terrorists who plan to detonate a nuclear device at the Superbowl, was quiet a hit. After grossing $120 million in North America, the $70 million film based on a Tom Clancy novel and directed by Phil Alden Robinson and starring Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman, went on to gross about $60 million in about 12 countries. It could end its world run with about $200 million.

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