Louis C.K to Buy Back the Rights to I Love You, Daddy for $5 million
Disgraced comedian Louis C.K. will buy back the rights to his film I Love You, Daddy for $5 million, reports Deadline.
Back in September, distribution company The Orchard purchased distribution rights to the film for $5 million after it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Deadline reports C.K. will buy back those rights and has also agreed to pay for any marketing costs incurred, which could add up to between $500,000 and $1 million.
The Orchard canceled plans to release the film after a New York Times investigation revealed five women made allegations of sexual harassment against the actor, director, and comedian. On November 10, C.K. issued a statement admitting the allegations were true. The FX Network, HBO, and Netflix all quickly cut ties with the 50-year-old actor.
Sexual harassment revelations aside, the subject matter of I Love You, Daddy has drawn its fair share of raised eyebrows. In an admitted ode to Woody Allen’s retrospectively disturbingManhattan, Louis C.K. plays a TV producer and father to a 17-year-old daughter who is falling love with a 68-year-old filmmaker friend played by John Malkovich. Controversy bubbled around the film back in September, which C.K. dismissed, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s just a F—ing movie.”
“I grew up with that,” C.K. said of the teenager-old man relationship his film portrays. “Manhattan is a movie I saw as a kid, and I was like, ‘OK, that’s what people do.’”
What Louis C.K. plans to do the film, shot entirely in secret, is unknown. He’s could relegate it to the vault, or release the film directly to the public through his website as he did with the short series, Horace and Pete.
With all that’s come to light in the past few months, perhaps a film homage to the work of an accused molester made by an admitted sexual harasser about a romantic relationship between a teenager and a man in his 60s is best left buried.
Do you think C.K. should release the movie? Tell us @britandco!
(Photos via Getty)
