’47 Ronin’ Director Carl Rinsch Has Been Kicked Out of the Editing Room

Recently it was announced that troubled production '47 Ronin' would go back for some reshoots, and had been delayed from February 2013 until December 25, 2013 (to put that in context, the film was scheduled to be released this November). Now the news is spreading that director Carl Rinsch has been removed from the editing room.

According to The Wrap, the reshoots finished shooting a week ago, and those were done to get a clearer sense of Keanu Reeves's character in the middle of the film's climatic action scene. Now that the footage is finished the project is being handled by one of Universal's chair-people. As The Wrap tells us "Firing Rinsch was not a possibility, as the Directors Guild of America requires that if a director completes physical production he must also take part in the reshoots. But with the reshoots done, the director was then pushed aside."

And from their reports, Rinsch never had control of the film once it went into production, and the film has ballooned to a $225 Million dollar budget, while Universal is claiming the budget is closer to $175 Million. Which also means the budget could be somewhere near $250 Million or more (we say that because it's impossible to believe budget spin).

It's not fair to the finished product, but there is a stink on this movie that probably won't go away, and though we may get a good or great movie out of the deal, this film has been branded a fiasco. But where James Cameron has been able to successfully pull off troubled productions, they weren't films that were compromised by the studio stepping in. And at this point, it's not like the studio can do anything but throw good money after bad if it is as problematic as they say. Currently the film is scheduled for next Christmas. And perhaps we will see it then. Perhaps.