The producer of low -budget action films, Randall Emmett, recently unveiled a high -level collaboration with the Oscar -winning director Martin Scorsese to bring the history of a deadly avalanche in 1982 near Lake Tahoe on the big screen.
The project, “Wall of White”, is produced and funded by the Emmett production company, Convergence Entertainment Group, according to Hollywood Trade Site Deadline.
But the Writers Guild of America West on Wednesday published an opinion prohibiting its members from working on the film.
The guild quoted the fact that Emmett does not pay writers to work on previous projects. Since 2020, Emmett has been on the guild “strike list”.
“Emmett has a long history of refusal to honor the obligations to the writers and the guild has filed numerous arbitrating complaints against companies belonging to Emmett in the last decade,” said WGA in the email, adding that the guild “prohibits members from working for or selling literary equipment to companies or people who are on the strike list.”
Scorsese and its representatives were not immediately available to comment.
“We are fully funding this film, and we intend to settle this dispute in the coming weeks,” Emmett told Times. “Our representatives will contact the writers guild so that we can put this question six years ago behind us.”
Leila Azari, a senior WGA lawyer, told Times: “Emmett has declared several times in the past he would pay and that.”
Emmett was the subject of a 2022 Times Investigation And a subsequent Hulu documentary that has surfaced allegations of abuse against women and assistants as well as assistant ill -treatment and business partners, which he denied.
The “Wall of White” project is based on a 2010 book as well as a documentary in 2021, “Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche”. After a strong spring storm in northern California in 1982, tons of snow ruled a mountain and in a village, trapping eight people in a ski resort. Seven died and the rescuers pulled a woman from the wreckage.
Scriptwriter Petter Skavlan, a member of the WGA, is attached to the film, according to IMDB. The author of books Jennifer Woodlief is also listed as a screenwriter. She is not a member of the WGA, according to the guild.
Emmett has been working on the project for about a year and presented the Netflix documentary in Scorsese, according to a March article in the Tahoe guidewhich presented the way in which the local tragedy was adapted to a feature film of convergence and scorsese.
The article cited a press release from production films, a company from Northern California which includes producers of “buried” documentaries, Jared Drake and Steven Siig, as well as the executive producer Mark Gogolewski. All signed the Emmett project, according to their website.
The reports indicate that the film was to be in production this year. No director has been attached.
Emmett formed Convergence Entertainment Group at the beginning of 2022 with the financier of Miami Joel Cohen, according to the commercial files of Nevada. At that time, the longtime shingle of Emmett, Emmett / Furla Oasis, had collapsed under the weight of millions of dollars in debt towards former financiers and co-producers.
The Writers Guild of America West won a judgment of $ 541,464 against the Emmett / Furla Oasis company, now disappeared, after having filed a complaint on behalf of writers who alleged that they had been short for their work in 2019 on a television series which was supposed to present the former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the actor fell and the show was never done.
With interest, the debt now exceeds $ 700,000, the guild said.
Last summer, the union added another company that was created to buy source equipment for Emmett projects, 50 feet of films, to its typing list.
“We want to make sure that each member of the WGA knows this project and knows that he cannot work for Convergence Entertainment Group … As part of this project or any other project,” said Azari in an interview. “They can't work for Randall Emmett.”
Despite the disappearance of his Former production companyA trace of prosecution and bad advertisements, Emmett continues to line up by producing partners and stars of big name to make his films on a budget.
His association with Scorsese dates back more than a decade. In 2013, Emmett became an improbable savior for Scorsese, who had tried for 15 years to obtain funding for a project On Portuguese Jesuit priests in the 17th century investigating Catholic persecution.
None of the major studios would affect “silence”, but after a call from the agent of Scorsese, Ari Emanuel de Wme, Emmett jumped at the opportunity.
Martin Scorsese during a 2013 photo shoot.
(Liz O. Step / Los Angeles Time)
Emmett and his then partner, George Furla, would have increased half the budget of $ 46.5 million for The film featuring Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield.
In exchange for supporting “silence”, Emmett obtained a production credit – and finally an Oscar nomination – on the next film by Scorsese, the 2019 MOB Epic “The Irishman” for Netflix.
