Ben Affleck just can't catch any breaks, can he? After his acting career took more critical knocks that a million Britney Spears dance routines, Ben Affleck decided to start directing – only Madeleine McCann's buggered that up too now.
Ben Affleck's directorial debut, due to be screened at the London Film Festival next month, is a movie about a little girl who goes missing after her parents leave her alone. We don't know if Gone Baby Gone is any good, and we don't think we ever will now – Ben Affleck has realised that Madeleine McCann has basically ripped off the whole idea for his movie and now doesn't want it to be released in Britain. We know, we know – if an all-encompassing, media-saturated crime investigation is what it takes to get Ben Affleck to ban his stuff here, then why didn't someone go on a killing spree with a Lynx clicker when those cock-awful deodorant adverts were on? Really, it'd have saved us an awful lot of bother.
The Madeleine McCann case has got 'prime-time ITV drama starring Amanda Holden' written all over it – and as soon as the Portuguese police have worked out if Madeleine's parents did it or not, we're pretty sure that you won't be able to move for opportunistic dramatisations of Madeleine's abduction/ murder/ whatever and the ensuing media attention, hopefully with most of them starring Ronnie Corbett as Pope Benedict XVI. But, however the story of the Madeleine McCann case is treated in subsequent movies and TV shows, at least Ben Affleck will have the warm satisfaction of knowing that he got there first.
Things haven't gone so well for Ben Affleck lately – while he's made a series of dazzling awful films that started with Bounce and ended with, well, we'll let you know when it happens, Ben Affleck has watched his Good Will Hunting partner Matt Damon go on to star in massive blockbusters and Oscar-winning films, making him the best value actor in Hollywood – so Ben Affleck turned instead to directing. Hopes were high for Affleck's first movie Gone Baby Gone; not only because it's based on a book by the man who wrote double Oscar-winner Mystic River but because Ben Affleck put so much into directing it that he got a bit of a headache once.
But here in the UK we may never get to see Gone Baby Gone because Ben Affleck is getting cold feet over the similarities to the ongoing Madeleine McCann case. Not only is it about a little girl who gets abducted when her parents leave her alone, but the actress playing the role of the abducted toddler is also called Madeleine… and looks vaguely like Madeleine McCann from certain angles, too. Spooky! The Telegraph reports:
Similarities to the Madeleine McCann case have indefinitely delayed the release of Ben Affleck's new film about a four-year-old girl's disappearance… Buena Vista International and its distributor Miramax said they were "sensitive to the depth of feeling surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann". "We have been closely following the case and have decided to delay the release of the film in the UK," it added. Speaking earlier… Affleck said: "All the people involved in the film have much greater concern for Madeleine McCann than we do for the release of our project. The movie will not be released if it is going to touch a nerve or inflame anybody's sensitivities."
Of course, Gone Baby Gone also deals with drug addiction and vicious child abuse – two things that have nothing to do with the Madeleine McCann story; although the way things are going we'd only probably give it a week or so until they did.
And Ben Affleck isn't the only one who's felt the heat of the Madeleine McCann case – in May EastEnders had to quickly rewrite a baby kidnap storyline for fears it would be uncomfortably similar to the McCann investigation. So maybe Ben Affleck can just get around the situation in the same way that EastEnders did, by switching the plot around until it's about a crazy doctor trying to slash open the belly of a pregnant woman who she's been torturing while screaming "I WANT MY BABY!" in a hugely unsuitable way.
Or maybe Ben Affleck could keep Gone Baby Gone banned in the UK, making people really want to see it even though they can't, helping the movie achieve mythical status and gigantic box office returns when it is eventually released, despite everyone knowing deep down that it's just a run-of-the-mill private detective movie made by the bell-end from Gigli. Either one's fine.
UPDATE – We've just leafed through a copy of Gone Baby Gone. It's not like the Madeleine McCann story at all – the policeman did it.
Read more:
Ben Affleck Film Halted In The UK Over Madeleine McCann Concerns – Telegraph
Dave says
Regarding the “Madeleine McCann Spoils Ben Affleck’s New Film”
September 14th, 2007 at 11:30 by Stuart Heritage…..take it off. That is the stupidest piece of journalism i have ever seen. So what if Ben “whats his face” has to hold onto his film for alittle longer. Stuart, the Madelenine McCann sitution is serious, if she was kidnapped or not. You poked fun at Madelenine like she was little more then an annoyance. Lousy.
“Ben Affleck decided to start directing – only Madeleine McCann’s buggered that up too now.”
Give me a break. You a cheapshot writer if you think this way. Only solictors loose their souls after they get into their job, not journalists.
Rich from Redditch says
“Give me a break. You a cheapshot writer if you think this way. Only solictors loose their souls after they get into their job, not journalists.”
No, you give US a break, Dave, from bad grammar and appalling spelling for starters. This site, and Stuart’s writing in particular, are the perfect antidote to the tabloid journalism that is by turns sycophantic then vitriolic. Don’t you get it? It’s the journalism itself they’re ridiculing for God’s sake!
Let’s have more on Princess Diana’s smashed up face please Stuart!
Sub says
Mr Stuart, Please give Madeline’s parents a break. You need to sell papers, but this is really sickening.
Gilbert Wham says
Yes Mr Stuart, you should give up this Internet lark and sell papers. ‘Eeeeeeevernin’ Stannndeerrrrd!”
Roy Le Pre says
Not that I tend do to this much these days, or that I have ever done so to this extent: but upon deep contempation – and analysis – of this article, and having finally seen the light upon the issue, it would seem that some of us might not have fully grasped the point of this sarcastically good piece of writing. It is ultra-satirical, in that it mocks the very quality of the news we are given, by taking it to its extreme. Rich from Redditch hits the nail on the head. ‘Tis not the McCann saga that is mocked, but its coverage and usage. Eureka! Were it not for writers like Heritage, I would long have become extinct.
sarah says
This is a horrible statement about the mcann family. It makes me sick that people like you exist. The only reason I read this was to confirm that you are a rotten person with no empathy or respect for others. Tables turn people,mocking is cathching!!!!!!!!!!