There's no question that Universal has had its share of problems with 47 Ronin, as the release date shuffling, reshoots, and reportedly blown budgets can attest. Last week it appeared they had finally reached their boiling point when news broke that they had canned first-time director Carl Rinsch, removing him from the editing room completely. But Deadline is saying those reports were false, and that Rinsch "has been in the editing room all week". So what's going on exactly?
The story last week really cast Rinsch in a terrible light, making him look like a totally incompetent filmmaker in way over his head. The budget had skyrocketed to over $225M and the studio set up reshoots to add more Keanu Reeves into the mix. Deadline says this wasn't the case, saying that the director's strong opinions led to him not exactly being loved by the crew, and the whole thing was just sort of blown out of proportion. They admit that Universal has indeed taken a more active role in the editing, although that's not exactly unheard of for a film of this size. The point being that Rinsch is very much involved.
Right now it aim is still to have 47 Ronin ready by Christmas 2013, but I still have my doubts whether that'll happen. Despite Deadline's claims, their sourcing is no more concrete than the previous story, so who knows what's really going on? I feel like this may be just Universal trying to head off the bad press and reviews that usually accompany stories of on-set turmoil.
