Well, you can count Kevin Smith out of that Buckaroo Banzai television series.
On Monday night, the cult filmmaker told his fans during a Facebook Live chat that he exited Amazon’s forthcoming television adaptation following MGM’s legal battle over rights with original screenwriter Earl Mac Rauch and director W.D. Richter.
“I’m not jumping into that legal battle,” Smith explained, claiming the only reason he worshipped the film was because of Rauch and Richter. “I don’t want to make anything unless those dudes are involved. They had the vision. All we’re doing is taking their amazing vision and making a TV show of it. What I’m saying is, respectfully to all parties involved, I’m out.”
However, Smith insisted that things are coup de la with MGM.
“I love the people at MGM,” he added. “They’ve treated me insanely well all across this project, with real credibility and stuff like that. They thought I could do this show even when I didn’t think I could. And the folks at Amazon have been lovely as well. But you’ve got to remember, there’s no production yet, no script has been turned in, I haven’t been paid a dime, no money has been really spent. So it’s not like we’re going to upend a lot of things.”
On the plus side, it leaves the door wide open for Quentin Tarantino.
