Mathew Cullen isn’t haven’t a great week. And honestly, if everything were to go as originally planned, this would be a time of celebration for the director. Instead, after a delay of more than three years, Cullen’s feature film debut “London Fields” posted one of the worst box office debuts in history and has a terrible 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. And in a new interview, surprisingly, Cullen not only agrees with those reviews but also explains why he chose to be the scapegoat for the film’s failure.
You see, back in 2015, “London Fields,” which stars Billy Bob Thornton, Amber Heard, and Jim Sturgess, was set to have a big premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Then, due to a dispute between Cullen and the producers and studio behind the scenes, ‘Fields’ was pulled before the premiere. Then over the next three years, multiple lawsuits prevented the film from being released.
Now, just last weekend, the film finally hit theaters, thanks to Cullen and new rights-holders, but the film was still poorly received at the box office and with critics. So what happened? Well, a lot actually.
“I’ve read the reviews. I agree with them,” says Cullen in a new interview with THR.
He later added, admitting to some of the film’s flaws, “There’s a reason why they said that Amis’ book was unadaptable.” The director wouldn’t be wrong, as previous filmmakers such as David Cronenberg, David Mackenzie, and Michael Winterbottom all passed on the film after being attached.
But Cullen’s acceptance of the film’s terrible reviews and box office only tells half the story. What people don’t realize is that when the rights-holders of the film agreed to distribute it with Cullen’s approval, they didn’t just release the version of the film that the director worked on. No, the version of the film that was released in theaters and given to critics was a version edited together by the distributor, not Cullen.
The reason he allowed this is more pragmatic than artistic. “About a year ago, I came to the realization that if my movie was going to be seen, that I just had to finish the film,” he says.
He then agreed to a deal with the distributor that he would spend his own money to finish his version of the film, which included sound mixing, final color, visual effects, and even pay to have it rated by the MPAA, if they’d agree to release it on a small number of screens. However, his version is not the cut that was shown nationwide, as mentioned.
And so, Cullen decided to take the bullet, and be labeled as the director of one of the biggest bombs in cinema history. He says, “Under DGA rules, I could have used a pseudonym, but in that process, I wouldn’t ever be allowed to talk about the film again and I wouldn’t have had the ability to release my version of the film.”
So yeah, “London Fields” is a terrible film and a box office bomb, but we’ll never know what could have happened if the film actually saw its original release plan three years ago, or if things would have been different if Cullen’s version hit screens. Instead, the director will go down in infamy.