Joshua Newton, the producer and director of "Iron Cross," has sued Variety for fraud and breach of contract over a negative review of his film that he claims undermined a $400,000 advertising campaign orchestrated by the trade. Grilled by Sharon Waxman, he accuses Variety editor Tim Gray of lying, and says publisher Neil Stiles told him he planned to end all reviews in 2010. Asked for a response, Gray had no comment and Stiles did not respond to an email.
Most people think you’re crazy for suing Variety over a bad review.
I’m not suing them over a bad review. The problem we had was the timing. Robert Koehler, the critic, could have put it on his own website. If he’d have written it for TheWrap it would have just been one of those things. The problem was that Variety should have waited until the campaign was over. They completely destroyed the campaign that they sold us.
Explain how this campaign came about.
When the film was far from complete, they came to us. Roy died (of cancer) toward the end of filming and we had number of serious technical issues to deal with because of that.
So what happened with Variety?
A year after Roy died we held a Hollywood tribute with 200 guests at the Beverly Hills Hotel which was a fundraiser for multiple myeloma. We took out an ad for "Iron Cross" three weeks prior to the party.
I invited (Variety advertising executive) Dawn Allen. She came, she saw the trailer. And she invited me a couple of days later to be Neil Stiles’ guest, wtih my son and my girlriend, at Variety’s table at Britweek. I was placed next to Neil, I was his guest. Neil was clearly doing his spiel, selling us what a fantastic magazine Variety is. Several weeks later Dawn Allen called and said we were on (editor) Tim Gray’s shortlist of Oscar contenders.
How do you think that happened? Had Tim Gray seen the film?
I hadn’t edited it yet. I hadn’t even cut the movie.
You were not suspicious at that point?
At the end of the day, whether one questions their motives or not, we knew we had a great movie. We didn’t have an OK film and someone talks you into the fact that it’s great. We knew we had a really good movie on our hands.
What happened next?
When I relayed this news to our backers in London, you can imagine the excitement they felt. We are aware of course that promotions play a huge, huge role in securing nominations. When they pitched us, it seemed plausible what they were pitching.
Did they ever make any representations about reviews?
No, not at all. They were so overwhelmingly positive about the film, it was inconceivable that we would be in this situation.
Although this is my first full-length feature, I’ve been in the business for over 20 years in England.
