Telling It Like It Is

I didn't know who Kevin Greutert was until he was hired on to direct to Paranormal Activity 2 and I thought it was an odd choice considering his only directing experience was helming Saw VI; the film that the original Parnormal Activity trounced at the box office. The story took an interesting turn when Twisted Pictures, the studio behind the Saw franchise elected to exercise a clause in Greutert's contract that would force him to direct the new Saw film instead. This move of course forces him to drop out of Paranormal Activity 2, a film that was on the fast track to be in theatres on October 22nd, the same day, not-so-coincidentally that the new Saw 3D was slated for release. Gee, I wonder why they did that?

Greutert, who was the editor on the first five Saw flicks before taking the directors chair for Part VI, showed his skills in the suite by cutting the shit and telling it like it is today on his blog. Over at /Film I read his honest no bullshit take on the awkward situation of being yanked from one film and put on another with so little time to prep the film. "I'm in the middle of something really terrible now, as anyone who has come to this site probably knows. While I fight for justice in this, the important thing is to avoid giving into hatred and anger, because these emotions are life killers. Hopefully we will arrive at an amicable solution. Thank you everyone who is working wtih me on this."

It's... civil. But it's not quite polite. I mean, he does use the word hatred. He does refer to directing Saw 3D as "something really terrible" which may actually be accurate. So he's not sitting on the fence in any way, but he's also not slinging mud.

But then he commented again in a much more honest, bitter fashion. "I just had the task of telling my 83 year old mother that no, I'm not going to be allowed to direct the movie we were all so excited about when my family last got together, and that I'm being forced to leave town before getting a chance to see her again. Yes, I'll be filming people getting tortured YET AGAIN. So we'll have to put off making a film she can actually watch for another year. I'm not making this shit up."

That's honest. That's straight up. That's ballsy. It's also not-so-suprisingly no longer up on his site. Maybe I judged this guy too quickly because of his Saw assoctation. Sounds like he doesn't like the series that much either! Greutert does have a very legitmate gripe; Twisted isn't bringing him back because they want him, they're doing it cause they don't want Paranormal 2 to have him, and they want to do whatever they can to disrupt the pre-production and cause them to miss their release date. It might be a career-limiting move, but I have to respect that he's not taking this lying down.