London Fields does not have a huge amount going for it. Mathew Cullen’s Martin Amis adaptation has been plagued with trouble from the outset. Slated to debut at the 2015 Toronto film festival, London Fields was pulled at the last minute when Cullen sued the film’s producers for fraud. The following year, producers issued Amber Heard with a $10m lawsuit, causing her to countersue. The film was finally released in September … but only in Russia.
When it finally limped into American cinemas last weekend, London Fields quickly became one of the biggest flops in living memory. Gaining a per-screen average of $261, it has the second worst opening for any widely released film in history. In addition, the movie has been universally derided by critics. With a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it has been called “wildly uneven”, “aggressively awful”, “quite simply horrendous” and “a complete mess”. It is, by all accounts, a spectacular failure.
But Hollywood is fuelled by self-congratulation. Someone needs to step up and take credit for this thing. And if the producers, director and star are at war – not to mention the fact that the relationship between the two biggest names, Heard and Johnny Depp, has since ended in a morass of public recrimination – then who should it be? Step forward West Byfleet-based insolvency practitioners Gibson Hewitt. If the press release the firm has circulated is any indication, these accountants are definitely the heroes we all need right now.
With the subject line “London Fields hits US cinema screens with help from top Surrey insolvency firm”, the press release reads like a great big pat on the back for the company responsible for forcing this rancid film into cinemas. It quotes the company’s director, Lynn Gibson, as saying: “We are absolutely delighted that the film has finally been released in the USA. Shot over a number of months, the hard work and dedication shown by the film’s crew and cast have been realised in an interesting adaptation of this world-famous novel. Having worked with solicitors and attorneys around the world to get where we are now was a massive undertaking following a complex administration and ongoing legal issues”. Hooray for West Byfleet-based insolvency practitioners Gibson Hewitt!
London Fields is such a thumping failure on every level that this press release represents the nicest thing that anyone has said about it. In fact, it’s a failure on the part of the London Fields marketing team that they didn’t produce posters quoting it in huge letters above the title. “Interesting,” it could say. Or: “A massive undertaking following a complex administration and ongoing legal issues.”
It’s rare to receive press releases that so brazenly undercut the notion that film-making is an artistic pursuit, so it has been refreshing to hear from Gibson Hewitt. Its obvious joy at overcoming such a thick web of legal disputes and competing contractual subclauses, even if it’s all in service of what may well be one of the worst films ever made, is heartening. You sense that the people at Gibson Hewitt love their work, even if the press release makes it clear that their work largely revolves around liquidating businesses and tainting Amber Heard’s career.
It’s enough to make you wish that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would carve out time during the Oscars to recognise people like this. Maybe it should introduce a new category: best forced release of a film that doesn’t deserve to be seen. Or most persistent legal work in service of a flop. Or, at the very least, most dogged West Byfleet-based insolvency practitioners. It’s no less than these good people deserve.
