USA audiences have been patiently anticipating the release of Nicole Kidman’s “Grace of Monaco” only to now find out that it will go straight to television, almost a year after its world release at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival (and almost 10 years to the date of Prince Rainier’s death).
The question Will America Ever See Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly in U.S. theaters has now finally been answered. On April 7th, Lifetime Television (a subsidiary of A&E Networks, which is a joint venture of the Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst Corporation) released the following press release:
GRACE OF MONACO PREMIERING MAY 25 ON LIFETIME®
ACADEMY AWARD® AND GOLDEN GLOBE®-WINNING ACTRESS NICOLE KIDMAN STARS IN GRACE OF MONACO PREMIERING MAY 25 ON LIFETIME® (8 p.m. ET/PT on Memorial Day Monday)
Tim Roth, Frank Langella, Parker Posey and Paz Vega also Star
LOS ANGELES, CA (April 7, 2015) – Academy Award® and Golden Globe® Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman stars as Grace Kelly in Grace of Monaco (#GraceofMonaco), following the former Hollywood actress’ life as the Princess of Monaco during a tenuous time personally and politically, as she struggles with her decision to retire from acting forever while the future of Monaco hangs in the balance. Premiering on Lifetime on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, at 8pm ET/PT, the movie also stars Tim Roth (Lie to Me, Klondike) as Prince Rainier III, Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon, Superman Returns) as Father Francis Tucker, a Catholic priest and Grace’s confidante; Parker Posey (Louie, The Good Wife) as Madge, Grace’s aide, and Paz Vega (Spanglish, Sex and Lucia) as opera singer Maria Callas.
Set in 1962, six years after her celebrated “wedding of the century,” Grace of Monaco is an intimate snapshot of a year in the life of actress-turned-princess Grace Kelly as she reconciles her past as a Hollywood darling and her present as Prince Rainier III’s wife. Yearning for a return to her acting career, Grace finds herself plunged into a personal crisis to decide the fate of her marriage while her husband is at political odds with France’s President Charles de Gaulle. With a French invasion impending for Monaco, Grace must make the difficult decision whether to stand by the side of her husband and newfound country, or return to the bright lights of Hollywood.
Grace of Monaco is executive produced by Claudia Bluemhuber (Under the Skin, The Railway Man), Uday Chopra (Mohabbatein, Dhoom), Uta Fredebeil (Under the Skin, The Railway Man) and Bill Johnson (The Grey, Jobs), with Chopra also serving as producer. Directed by Olivier Dahan (La Vie en Rose). Arash Amel (Erased) wrote and produced the screenplay.
While it may seem good news that Grace of Monaco is finally being released in the United States, it speaks volumes that it is skipping movie theaters, as well as the traditional routes of Netflix, iTunes, HBO and even DVD sales. The blame now seems to be focusing on french director Olivier Dahan as even the screenwriter Arash Amel is distancing himself from the project, when in fact it was his original script that was such a farce. Princess Caroline read the Grace of Monaco movie script first – upon reading the first few pages… she laughed out loud… thought it was a comedy… continued reading and then was horrified. The actual real story is told in the pages of “My Days with Princess Grace of Monaco” for those that want to know the truth of what really happened.
The drama may be best summarized in this Hollywood Reporter article:
… After the movie performed poorly in its international engagements, The Weinstein Co., which first purchased U.S. distribution rights at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival, decided to sell it directly to Lifetime rather than book it into U.S. theaters, a source confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, which was directed by Olivier Dahan and focuses on a period in the early ’60s when Monaco was involved in a stand-off over taxes with France and Grace was contemplating a return to Hollywood, was originally scheduled for release in late 2013. Given the names involved, some handicappers had put it on their list of potential Oscar contenders.
But when TWC pulled it out of awards contention and shifted its release to March 14, 2014, Dahan lashed out at TWC’s Harvey Weinstein, over the movie’s final cut, which the director was in the process of completing. “There are two versions of the film for now, mine and his,” Dahan complained, continuing, “They want a commercial film smelling of daisies, taking out anything that exceeds that which is too abrupt, anything that makes it cinematic and breathe with life.”
That planned March release was then scrubbed, when Cannes expressed interest in debuting the director’s version of the movie in May. Even before it screened, though, Grace’s children blasted the picture as “needlessly glamorized and historically inaccurate” and boycotting the Cannes red carpet.
Weinstein didn’t attend the movie’s premiere either — explaining that he had been visiting Syrian refugee camps in Jordan as part of a long-scheduled U.N.-sponsored trip. But TWC did strike a new distribution deal for the film in Cannes, agreeing to show Dahan’s cut in the U.S., but acquiring rights for just $3 million upfront, a $2 million discount from its earlier contract.
But TWC then did not slot Grace of Monaco into its fall 2014 release schedule.
Tim Roth costars as Kelly’s husband Prince Rainier III, Frank Langella as Kelly’s priest and confidante, Parker Posey as Grace’s aid, and Paz Vega (Spanglish, Sex and Lucia) as opera singer Maria Callas.
Other notable actors in Grace of Monaco include Sir Derek Jacobi, Roger Ashton-Griffiths (Alfred Hitchcock), Milo Ventimiglia, and Robert Lindsay. There might be a possible silver lining for Nicole Kidman, perhaps she may qualify for an Emmy Award (television’s version of the Oscar’s).
The Washington Post presented an interesting synopsis titled: “How ‘Grace of Monaco’ went from prestige Oscar bait to Lifetime movie”
If only someone could make a $35 million dollar film about the drama surrounding the cinematic Hindenberg that is “Grace of Monaco,” that might be worth watching.
It’s got compelling characters: a notoriously bullying, Oscar-chasing control freak distributor (Harvey Weinstein), an overly precious French director (Olivier Dahan), and a leading lady with a frozen face attempting to play a woman who is more than a decade younger than her (Nicole Kidman).
Give the whole thing a whimsical score — maybe get Jeff Richmond to do it — and you could release it as comedy.
But really – how did this Kidman vehicle — with powerful Hollywood backing — about a glamorous international celebrity movie go from possible Oscar bait to skipping a theatrical release altogether and airing Memorial Day weekend on Lifetime?
Was it really that bad? Like, “Liz and Dick” bad?
Well, as we know from the Cannes reviews, no one thought it was good.
Here are the key points:
Everybody hates Olivier.
Weinstein and “Grace of Monaco” director Olivier Dahan famously clashed over edits, which is what led to the film’s release being pushed from November 2013 to March 2014. If it seems like we’ve been discussing this $35 million boondoggle for forever, it’s because, well, we have.
Weinstein told reporters at the Zurich International Film Festival that the film “just wasn’t ready.” “The score wasn’t ready, a lot of things weren’t ready,” he said.
But Dahan refuted that, telling a French newspaper in 2013 that Weinstein wanted a “commercial” film, and that’s not what he wanted to deliver. In fact, he called Weinstein’s vision a “pile of s—.”
“Decisions are made only with respect to marketing, exit, etc,” Dahan said. “All that is boring actually, and pollutes a film that also other people saw, and like a lot. This is a misplaced ego problem, a history of manipulation and power. Not cinema in the strict sense. Cinema is very secondary in all this, hence my lack of interest which begins to come for this film.”
When the film finally premiered at Cannes last year in May, Weinstein was very noticeably absent. He and wife Georgina Chapman were in Jordan visiting Syrian refugee camps, a trip he said had been long planned.
Later, he gave an explanation to Deadline:
The script we signed on for was like “The King’s Speech,” with the big moment where Princess Grace steps up. That is what attracted Nicole. I made eight movies with her including co-producing “The Hours” with Paramount, and “The Others.” I know why she took it and why I was involved. I’d seen rushes that were great. The director is French, and he turned it more into a Hitchcock movie like a paean to “Vertigo,” which ironically Grace wasn’t in. The writer, Arash Amel, called me and said, “what happened to my script?” It’s like, “welcome to Hollywood.” Writers don’t have any say, but we decided to pair him up with a team of people and see what he could do about restoring the movie to the way it looked when he wrote it. He did a wonderful job. You can ask Nicole. A beautiful job.
The director refused and criticized me profusely. In the old days, I would have fought for it. Here, I said, the better part of valor was just to tell Nicole, you should get this done and if you can’t then I’m not going to, because I’m tired of this. I don’t want these fights. That movie would have been helped greatly by the writer’s cut of the film and it’s something that people should see someday. It wasn’t a transformative movie but it was a damn entertaining one. But Olivier Dahan wanted to do what Olivier wanted to do. He called me names in the French newspapers. I figured the best thing to do was to step out.
When the news broke that “Grace of Monaco” would be airing on Lifetime, Amel greeted it with some mighty shady boots, tweeting, “I’m just glad the director’s vision found its rightful home.”
He teased his followers with a proposal: “This Memorial Day, shall I own this beautiful disaster? If enough interest I’ll live tweet what really went on behind scenes #GraceOfMonaco.” He continued, “Consider my proposed live tweet of #GraceOfMonaco on @lifetimetv on Memorial Day as the DVD commentary that should have been.” He later confirmed that he’s doing it.
However, as much as Weinstein and Amel piled on Dahan, Variety critic Scott Foundas couldn’t see how a different cut would have helped much, and called Amel’s script “agonizingly airless and contrived.”
“Dahan’s strained bid to recapture the critical and commercial success of his smash Edith Piaf biopic ‘La Vie en rose’ is the sort of misbegotten venture no amount of clever re-editing could hope to improve,” he wrote.
The royal family of Monaco hated the movie.
Not only did they hate it, they made sure everyone knew just how much they hated it.
“The trailer appears to be a farce and confirms the totally fictional nature of this film,” they said in a statement, adding, “The Princely family does not in any way wish to be associated with this film which reflects no reality and regrets that its history has been misappropriated for purely commercial purposes.”
No one knows which cut will appear on Lifetime.
Despite the fact that a version of “Grace of Monaco” will appear on Lifetime, no one knows which version that is. Dahan’s famously panned cut is the one that premiered at Cannes, but there’s also a Weinstein-approved cut and yet another one Amel prefers.
SEE Grace of Monaco Movie Clips here
