Interview
With GEORGE LUTZ,
survivor and rights holder to
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR
By Ranting
Ryan
Article
Courtesy Of
Entertainment Rewired
Almost
everyone has seen the classic 1979 film The Amityville Horror. It came
out fresh off the tidal wave of attention given to the actual haunting that
affected a man, George Lutz, his wife and children. If you were alive
during that time, then you know the story: a family fled the house
after living their for only 28 days. During their stay, bizarre phenomenon
nearly drove them insane. World renown investigator Ed Warren came
in to investigate. Since then, other investigators have come in such
as Hans Holzer, John Zaffis and others.
George Lutz came to speak at Penn State this October. Not only do I
run an online webzine, but I have a strong interest in the paranormal
and therefore convinced the university to give us about $10,000 to throw
an annual paranormal conference. George spoke about the events. He
then announced a three picture deal well before any other news group reported
it.
Having known George and talked to him from time to time, its the opinion
of this lowly college writer that he genuinely wants his story heard. He
lived a terrible ordeal, and Hollywood found potential to tell a great story.
The trouble with Hollywood, as George later states in the interview,
is that whoever controls the money has the final say. And in this country,
even the stupidest sonofabitch can be wealthy.
I've spent the last two weeks trying to piece together a big package story
about The Amityville Horror. Unfortunately, the studios haven't been
that big of a help. MGM at first had no knowledge that they were doing
this film (way to go, guys), and Dimension eventually told us to talk to
MGM since they were the domestic distributors. Finally, I got a hold
of someone at MGM who knew who I was supposed to speak with, and this was
Friday (March 12), and needless to say, studio reps don't work on weekends
(although they should). Scott Kosar's rep was very kind and said that
he'd be open to do an interview about the subject, but he was contractually
forbidden to talk about the film until after it is released. Calls
to Michael Bay's production office weren't returned. So what we have
here really is a film in the very early stages. Kosar's rep confirmed
that he is currently writing the screenplay as we speak.
Now, after talking to George and researching the material, I think it's safe
to say that Kosar is putting together a draft that will likely be presented
to George, Bay, and the studio(s), and then the discussion of legal rights
between George's lawyers and the studio's will commence. This can be
very tricky, because it is possible for this film to sink due to legal issues.
I'm hoping this isn't so, because I honestly think the true story is
much more interesting than that falling-into-a-pit-of-black-goo movie released
in 1979 and its unrespective sequels. But the truth is that all the
legal entanglements don't look as if they've cleared yet. At first,
Dimension and MGM were going ahead with their own remakes at the same time.
But now they've merged to do only one.
Keep checking Entertainment-rewired.com because we will be following this
story very, VERY closely since we have a few contact sources (including George)
on the
film.
So there’s a rumor now that both Dimension and
MGM are doing the film? MGM doing domestic rights? Did you have anything
to do with this cooperation merge?
That’s what I’ve been told. I own the
sequel rights for the Amityville Horror for everything after and before the
28 days that are contained in the original book. Cathy and I own those together.
MGM believes that they have the right to make a remake of the original movie.
There are a lot of legal difficulties to that, I’m not sure that they
completely understand just yet. When Dino De Laurentis made the second movie,
he violated our sequel rights in a fashion that caused a lawsuit that was
12 years long. (It ended up being a settlement). And, at that point, American
International Pictures was then bankrupt; their film library was bought out
by MGM. So that’s how they got the rights that they hold, in terms in
being able to license them, etc. What happens with any contract is that,
if you breach any part of it, you breach the whole thing. You don’t
get to pick and choose which parts you wish to honor and which you don’t.
So when they breached our sequel rights, there was breach of contract, notable
enough to make a settlement for us. So in that process, our position is that
they don’t necessarily have all the rights that they think they do.
So, Michael Bay was looking around for projects
to do and it was announced in the trades that they had bought the rights
to do a fictional movie that I had licensed. The first part of that deal
was done 1 ½ years ago, the option that is. The Barstu Productions deal
was done in May. When that was exercised, they looked around for financing
and they continuously found better and better financing. So the ability to
make a better movie surfaced. Dimension called us back in and asked to do
a three-picture deal. So this last October, it then became an illusive
three-picture deal. Then the people over at Michael Bay’s thought it
would be better to do a remake plus two.
Have you met with Michael Bay and his production
company yet?
We’ve had scheduling problems with Michael
Bay and we’re trying to talk about this. I don’t have a problem
with Michael Bay’s company; they’re kind of new to the equation
in my mind on how to deal with this. We’ve been talking about me possibly
helping out as being a consultant.
When did the idea to remake or rather, retell the
Amityville Horror events come about? Were you approached?
I never had the right to retell the original. The
28 days would regard to my family. I’ve had the right to tell the story
of the investigation of the house, but that hasn’t been done yet. There
are a lot of stories there that haven’t been put on film.
Why did you decide to retell it?
My attitude about this is that anything that gets
this in the public’s eye, that gets them to know the truth about this,
to learn about it, anything that does that is a good and positive thing.
I consider that to be very important.
Have you been working closely with screenwriter
Scott Kosar? What is he doing differently?
As my understanding, that’ll be part of the
meeting that we have in the upcoming week and a half or so.
If they do have the right to do this, then they’re
limited to the 28 days and to the wording in the book. The original screenplay
limits them as such so that they’re options to retell the story become
pretty much line-by-line of the original. In other words, they have a very
narrow definition of what they can do.
Would you like them to tell the true version of
the events?
That’s something I’d very much like to
see happen of course, the 28 days happening realistically. If we can get
that to happen that would be wonderful. The problem is that most people
don’t understand, that when rights are transferred for movies, you
don’t have creative controls, the people who put up the money have the
controls as to what goes on, how its depicted and the rest. And, it’s
pretty rare for even a writer that has sold the rights from a book to be
a movie, for them to ultimately be happy on what was transferred to screen.
If you don’t put up the money, you don’t get the say. It’s
a hard reality. That’s the way it is.
What’s the production status right now? Just
waiting for the script?
It’s my understanding that he [Kosar] is writing
right now. I try not to get involved in all that because it’s not my
place is, I mean I’m always interested but I won’t interfere. These
are busy people, and there’s a lot on the line in the investment.
So can you explain a little bit more about what
you licensed to Dimension, and elaborate on the whole rights
situation?
I licensed three fictional movies for Amityville.
Amityville Horror is a trademark, as such to use the name, it has to be licensed.
So they come to me and they ask me, and we come to certain agreements and
it goes forward. When it happens, the people who put up the money have the
ultimate control over it. We try to work with them so it’s not something
totally off the wall and crazy. In the process, then, people find out that
it’s a true story, part of all that fiction becomes education.
Who wants to believe that this stuff is even possibly
true? I still don’t want to believe that this stuff happens. This is
not the good stuff that life is made of. But I had to face this, and the
fact is that other people are facing this as well. If someone watches one
of the fictional movies and is motivated to learn more about the truth, then
that’s a good thing. It becomes educational.
What’s funny is that Jay Ansen’s (the
author of the book) original screenplay was much more accurate. The studio
rejected it. The guy they hired was a dentist who wanted to be a screenwriter.
They liked what he did and did his version of the movie. But Ansen’s
is much more accurate. |
