Not one to readily admit to defeat, producer mogul Harvey Weinstein spoke to Deadline about a plethora of things, but mostly the Oscars. During that discussion Weinstein admits the obvious — The Master failed, or at least it failed to capture an audience.
It was a contender in September for the Oscars. The buzz grew around Joaquin Phoenix’ soon-to-be Oscar win. Amid an awkward quote from Phoenix about his thoughts on the award ceremony, and the lack of promotion, The Master failed to receive a ton of nominations across the board for award ceremonies.
Weinstein blames that on the obvious — the marketing of the film, which as a producer he was in full charge of. Although Harvey still has his horse in the race in the form of Silver Linings Playbook , he admitted to Deadline’s Mike Flemming that things could have went better.
Weinstein opened up about the issue surrounding The Master by admitting:
“I probably could have marketed it better. I probably should have prepared the audience. I think the audience had trouble with the movie and needed to be guided and eased into it. I was so enamored with the film that I didn’t think the audience would have that trouble. Maybe I would have done [Paul] more of a favor being a devil’s advocate instead of a cheerleader. I seem to do better when I’m playing devil’s advocate.”
Still, we can’t be too hard on Harvey Weinstein. He does still have Silver Linings Playbook , a few nominations for Django Unchained , and a record for pushing a lot of his films as Oscar frontrunners.
Did you go to see The Master ?
