Elton John and partner David Furnish have claimed that it took four
years for their Rocket Film’s production of Women Talking Dirty
to come to fruition, because it is “a woman’s film.”
In an interview
with the London Sunday Times, John said, “If the central
characters had been men, we’d have had no problems whatsoever. Business
decisions in the world of film are still largely made by men.”
Furnish
added: “The exhibitors, the people who own the cinemas, and those who
book the films are mostly men….I have an advertising and marketing
background and never saw the female slant as a problem. So the
distribution problems came as a shock.”
Although Rocket had a first-look
deal with Disney (recently renewed for another five years), the studio
passed on the movie. It was eventually taken under the wing of Jean
Doumanian’s Sweetland Productions and was screened at the Toronto Film
Festival in 1999. It is due to open in the U.K. on Friday, but no U.S.
release date has yet been set.
