Miramax, no longer under the control of the Weinsteins or Disney, has funded a restoration—a director's cut—of the maligned 1998 movie 54, starring Ryan Phillippe, Breckin Meyer, Salma Hayek, Neve Campbell and Mike Myers. It's ready to be seen, and at least one reviewer calls it a remarkably better movie.
Why did 54 suck to begin with? Its director, Mark Christopher, talks about how why the studio hamhandedly de-gayed it:
“So here's what happened. We had a small budget for such a big movie. It was $8 million, right? Then my cast started getting huge [i.e., more famous] when we were shooting and then the studio saw the dailies and loved them. So, already they started planning this as a bigger movie than it was ever meant to be. I think they actually loved my first cut, but then they tested it out in Long Island at malls. What you get are people like you that loved it and would score it 100, but all of these other people from the suburbs in 1998 who really gave incredibly homophobic feedback. And I think that was scary to the studio.”
More here. Check out a clip from the restored version here.
