Despite top stars (Michael Douglas, Matt Damon above / Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo) and big directors (Steven Soderbergh / Ryan Murphy), two long-gestating queer films, Behind the Candelabra and Larry Kramer's aids drama The Normal Heart, have failed to find studio backing and won't be released as features. The reason is they're "too gay."
Kramer's play debuted in 1985 and for years Barbra Streisand was going to make the movie version. In 2011 The Normal Heart was announced as a feature directed by out wiz Ryan Murphy, costarring Alec Baldwin and Jim Parsons, and co-produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B, but the funding fizzled.
Soderbergh, who is straight and retiring this year so less shy about burning his bridges, unloaded on Hollywood's homophobia in his efforts to finance the Liberace biopic: "Nobody would make it. We went to everybody in town. They all said it was too gay. And this is after ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ by the way, which is not as funny as this movie. I was stunned. It made no sense to any of us." He added, "Studios were going, 'We don't know how to sell it.' They were scared."
For some thoughts on Soderbergh's indignation, see the following post.
Both movies have been picked up by HBO, where they will get a lot of attention, a lot of award nominations, and limited viewership. Behind the Candelabra airs this spring, The Normal Heart in 2014.
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