Harvey Weinstein accused of physical assault by My Week With Marilyn producer in new UK documentary
David Parfitt, producer of the Michelle Williams starrer My Week With Marilyn and the Oscar-nominated Shakespeare in Love, has claimed that disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein physically assaulted him during the production of the film.
Harvey Weinstein. Image from AP
Parfitt's claim will be seen in Working With Weinstein — a documentary which will be aired on Channel 4 in the UK.
“When we actually got through the main shoot and into the test, he decided it wasn’t enough Marilyn’s film and that he wanted more Marilyn. The scores came in at the end of the test and they were very good, and I think he’d expected it to be not good. In his fury about it doing so well when he thought it wouldn’t, he physically assaulted me. We were talking at the back of the theater after the audience had left, but the Miramax crowd were around, and he pinned me up against a Coke machine and threatened all sorts of stuff. It was very scary. But he was just furious that the film in our version had worked," Parfitt alleges in the documentary, according to a Deadline report.
Starring Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Dominic Cooper, Judi Dench, Emma Watson and Julia Ormond — My Week With Marilyn was released by The Weinstein Company (TWC) in 2011. The movie was helmed by Simon Curtis and the screenplay was written by Adrian Hodges. The movie was co-produced by TWC, BBC Films, LipSync Productions and Parfitt’s Trademark Films.
Working With Weinstein “meets people who worked with Weinstein across 30 years of British film and investigates how we kept his accusers quiet for decades” along with exploring his relationship with the UK film industry.
The documentary also has accusations of sexual harassment and assault from former Miramax and TWC employees.
Since the claims have surfaced, a spokeswoman for Weinstein has released the following statement on behalf of the producer, denying the allegations:
“Mr. Weinstein categorically denies Mr. Parfitt’s claims as provably untrue and outrageous fiction. Mr. Parfitt and Mr. Weinstein had creative differences and any conflict between them was solely over their different visions for the film. While they had a series of spirited arguments where Mr. Weinstein made a lot of stupid remarks that he wishes he could take back, nothing physical happened.
The original version that Mr. Parfitt screened, didn’t include the musical numbers that Mr. Weinstein fought and personally financed to have included in the award winning film. In David Parfitt’s version, the movie felt like an ensemble piece. With Simon Curtis and Harvey Weinstein putting in the musical numbers, it felt like a Marilyn Monroe story.
Michelle Williams won the golden globe for her performance in the best musical comedy category and everyone that was associated with the movie, who saw it with the musical numbers, liked it better.”
Published Date: Feb 20, 2018 13:57 PM | Updated Date: Feb 20, 2018 13:57 PM
