Un-'Edgy' Fraggle Rock Writer-Director Bashes Weinsteins

There is a parallel universe where confetti and balloons and marching bands will arrive out of nowhere to celebrate the millionth filmmaker to rip on Harvey Weinstein. Here, however, all I can really do is offer a solo womp-womp fanfare and a couple sympathy pats to Cory Edwards, the writer/director who is ticked off that the Weinstein Company would go behind his back to solicit a rewrite of Fraggle Rock. How do we know? He blogged about it.

Indeed, Edwards is irate enough to go public with his grievances, which stemmed initially from him finding out that TWC was in search of a rewrite from scratch -- without telling Edwards, who has a deal to direct as well. "Which means my hands WILL be on this script," Edwards wrote Monday. "That makes this move by the studio all the more baffling. Hey guys, you know what would be easier? Asking the director to help you get the script in shape, instead of running in your own circles and then showing me something later that I'll probably hate."

LOLZ! He thinks he's dealing with Warner Bros. or something. Unless your movie is the one that "represents the thing that happened in cinema this year," you might rethink that whole moral-outrage thing about their scruples. You know who you are, they know who they are, and never the twain shall meet.

As if to provide further evidence of this reality, Edwards continued:

The only overall note coming from the studio is this: "Not edgy enough."

"EDGY." That's the note. That's what they are trying to do to the Fraggle Rock movie. EDGE it up! Let me say right now that "edgy" is one of my least favorite words. Since my earliest days in the client video business, "edgy" has been a sign of someone who doesn't know what they want. Not only is "edgy" a nebulous, abstract word that means something different to everyone, but it chases the immediate whims of pop culture. WHAT is edgy?? Faster edits? Rock music for the score? Boober wearing some gangsta bling? I have no idea. What I DO know is that the word "edgy" should not be anywhere near this movie.

What if Toy Story was edgy? Toy Story can be relevant, sharply written, and fast paced, but it has a genuine heart and sincere characters. Like Toy Story, Fraggle Rock's success is not only due to it's anti-edginess, but in its absolute DEFIANCE of all that is edgy and trendy and pop in this world.

I have said repeatedly that I will do my very best to make this Fraggle movie relevant and modern, to compete with everything else out there. But what I will NOT do is sabotage what made the property beloved in the first place. [...] Keep the Fraggle fire burning! And while it's burning, throw that frakking word "edgy" into the fire, will ya?

Dammnnn. This from the screenwriter whose Hoodwinked 2 has been on the Weinsteins' shelf so long the producers are suing them. Still, I'm less surprised by the public venting than I am by Edwards's expectation that the Weinsteins give half a crap about making (and/or even releasing) a genuine, sincere Fraggle Rock movie. When did they become a bastion of conscience and taste? These guys promote their movies with misogynistic soft-core porn! Speaking of which, a Wild Wild Fraggles site might be worth dropping in the rewrite; maybe that'll get Rock over the edgy hump.

· "Edgy" Alert [Cory's Curiosities via ⁄film]