Sketchy reports surface online that a deal has been reached, or Welles’ confidantes hint its world premiere is just around the corner. Hopes are raised, then dashed.
Director Peter Bogdanonich, who co-starred in the film and was asked by Welles to complete it in the event of his death, poured some rather strong cold water on those hopes today.
In a Nov. 20 interview with indiewire.com, Bogdanovich detailed the “very, very difficult situation.”
“I think it will get done some time but not in the near future,” Bogdanovich said.
“(Producer) Frank Marshall and I have been trying to put it together for many years. Orson died in 1985 and we’ve been trying ever since. It’s just ridiculous. The problem is that a lot of different people own parts of it or claim to own parts of it. And so the chain of title is difficult to establish,” Bogdanovich said. “But it keeps inching forward and we keep getting closer and closer and things fall apart again.”
A few years back, Bogdanovich was permitted to inspect the original negative in a Paris vault. It was reportedly in excellent condition.
Showtime has expressed an interest in the past in a finished “The Other Side of the Wind.”
Bogdanovich, 74, is currently at work on the big screen comedy “Squirrel to the Nuts,” starring Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson.
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