How 'Kids' Avoided Pornography Charges, and More Revelations About 1995's Most ... - Yahoo News
The 1995 film Kids was so daring that producers weren’t just afraid of critical backlash. Written by 19-year-old skateboarder Harmony Korine and directed by 52-year-old Clark, the movie was shot in a realistic vérité style, with no moral comeuppances or happy endings for its characters. A new oral history of Kids published on Rolling Stone ’s website describes the unusual way the film got distributed — and the lengths producers went to in order to stay out of legal trouble. Originally, Kids producer Cary Woods intended to screen the film at the Sundance Film Festival, then sell it to the highest bidder. However, Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein wrangled an early screening of the movie and became determined to acquire it. There was just one problem: Miramax was owned by Disney, which would never agree to distribute a film about kids using drugs... Weinstein’s solution was to launch an entirely new production company, Shining Excalibur Films, for the purpose of distributing Kids. (Weinstein originally suggested just “Excalibur Films,” until he realized it was the name of an existing adult-film studio. Source: www.yahoo.com
