UPDATE: Quinn and League, but not Janego, have bought an Anne Hathaway horror movie out of Toronto called “Colossal.” They still have no name for their studio and no actual plans. Maybe Anne should call Michael Moore.
EXCLUSIVE Today Michael Moore is celebrating something a little mysterious. He posted to Twitter that a year he met “three grifters”…There is no explanation, but it has something to do with a story I wrote last week about his movie “Where to Invade Next” and its non existent distributor.
Moore would have met the people whoM he signed with — Tom Quinn, Jason Janego, and Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse (the theater chain from Austin, Texas)– a year ago in Toronto, where “Where to Invade Next” opened the 2015 festival. Their new company had no name, but they promised it would. It never did, and never has gotten one. They never bought any other films. “Where to Invade Next” had great reviews, but died with just $4 million in the box office. It had no international release, even though it was all about how many different countries’ social policies were to be admired. Moore was supposed to go on a promo tour, but instead got pneumonia — possibly from working overtime to save the film. The whole thing was a total mess.
The Alamo Drafthouse part of this story may be a key. The Janego and Quinn movie company would have served the indie movie theater chain the way Landmark Theatres are tied to product from indies like A24. Alamo has a theater in Yonkers, but they were supposed to open one in Brooklyn last spring and then during the summer. The theater is apparently ready to go, but on August 24th they issued a mysterious proclamation that they weren’t ready and it’s not happening. Huh?
Is the non-opening of the Brooklyn Alamo tied in some way to Alamo never stepping up with Janego and Quinn? Moore hasn’t said much, but he did tell a reporter last May:
“I’m not prepared to talk about this right now. I think it needs some time and some investigation and when I have it all before me I’ll have something…I will say this, Tom Quinn and Jason Janego seem to be good and decent people,” Moore continued. “I didn’t know them before this transpired. But they certainly have a good track record, but honest to God I can’t answer your question because I honestly don’t know if there is a company, was a company, what they’re doing now. And that’s a different story for a different day.”
