David Parfitt, producer of My Week With Marilyn (2011) has accused Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul whose company distributed the film, of assault, in Working With Weinstein, a new documentary to be aired on British television tonight, as Peter White reports for Deadline.
“‘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,’ Parfitt said in the documentary. ‘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.’
A spokeswoman released the following statement on behalf of Harvey Weinstein.
“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.'”