"Previews and screenings were scheduled throughout 2006, yet they had to be canceled time and again due to Lonergan's refusal or inability to produce a cut of the picture," Gilbert argued in his suit against Lonergan and Fox Searchlight.
Gilbert in his legal papers also says that Lonergan "failed to keep regular hours," that producer Pollack cut short an editing session "having become disgusted by, and frustrated with, Lonergan's unprofessional and irrational behavior" and that Lonergan "did not listen to, or implement" editor Schoonmaker's suggestions. Gilbert said that when Fox Searchlight refused to pay for additional post-production costs, he footed the bill. At some point around that time, Lonergan turned to Broderick for a loan, according to a person close to the film.
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Film work has stopped
After a year and a half of editing, the situation imploded in the summer of 2007. Gilbert brought back the film's original editors, McCabe and Mike Fay, to recut the film while Lonergan was on vacation, but when Lonergan returned he "forbade" them to work on the film, Gilbert's lawsuit says.
Gilbert also hired editor Dylan Tichenor ("Brokeback Mountain") to recut the film, but Gilbert says that Fox Searchlight "refused even to screen it" in part because it didn't want to "damage . . . its reputation among the 'director community,' " his lawsuit says.
The financier argues his hands were tied: Lonergan wouldn't finish the movie to his or Gilbert's satisfaction, and no one -- including Fox Searchlight or producer Rudin (Pollack, who died in 2008, was in declining health) -- was willing to show a final-cut director the door.
Not long after, "Margaret's" completion bond company, International Film Guarantors, which insures that the film will be finished and delivered in a timely manner, stepped in. Lonergan gave IFG an earlier cut of the film (which Gilbert says was "randomly selected" and "incoherent"), which was then delivered to Fox Searchlight last June. With the film in hand, Fox Searchlight demanded that Gilbert and Camelot pay its contractually obligated share of the film's budget, $6.2 million, which they haven't paid.
Fox Searchlight said in its lawsuit that Gilbert and Camelot "invented a number of flimsy excuses." The studio believes Gilbert and Camelot's lawsuit against Lonergan and Fox Searchlight is essentially an attempt by Gilbert to delay payment and exercise creative rights he doesn't possess.
Gilbert's lawyer, Michael Plonsker, said that suggestion is "absurd. Without Camelot's financial support, Mr. Lonergan would not have been given the luxury to continue working on the film for over 2 1/2 years, which still was not enough time for him to complete his cut."
Lonergan's lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, said in a statement: "Mr. Lonergan has complied with and will continue to comply with his agreements."
Until the litigation is resolved, work on "Margaret" has stopped. Fox Searchlight probably won't have any problem putting the film behind it, but the same might not be true for Gilbert and Lonergan. For them, the film's dilemma mirrors a line from Hopkins' poem: "It is Margaret you mourn for."
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john.horn@latimes.com
