Date: 1st February 2001

Film About Censorship Is Censored


Doug Wright, who wrote the screenplay for Quills, which deals in part with the Marquis de Sade's battle against censors, has described as a "delicious irony" Fox Searchlight's decision to remove a section of its Quills website. The action, reported in Wednesday's Daily Variety, came after the film's distributor, Fox Searchlight, was contacted by a representative from the Motion Picture Association of America, who said that it had received complaints about the site from parents. "I always thought issues of censorship would arise," Wright told today's (Thursday) New York Post, "but I never dreamed it would be in our own backyard." A spokesperson for Fox Searchlight commented: "This is less about censorship than responsibility. ... Our decision to take down the material was based on the fact that you cannot prevent kids under 18 from visiting the site, though we had put up a warning about its content."

Source: Studio Briefing