Sir Elton John hits a sour note–his song axed from FINDING NEVERLAND~~
One of the few elements in FINDING NEVERLAND to receive a negative response has been the Elton John-Bernie Taupin song which played at the end of the film. An article in the October issue of PREMIERE states that the song was Harvey Weinstein’s idea and did not sit well with either the film’s director or its star. “It doesn’t feel right,” Marc Forster told PREMIERE. Johnny added, “I think that Elton John and Bernie Taupin have written some sublime pieces of music with equally sublime lyrics over the years, but this isn’t one of those.”
Critics agreed, often singling out “Peter’s Song” as the one sour note in an otherwise perfect production. Now Alix, a Zoner who attended the screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival in northern California on Thursday night, reports that the song has been cut from the movie. “There was only instrumental music throughout the film,” Alix reports. She had the opportunity to speak to the director after the screening, to see if he had won his battle with Harvey Weinstein. “I asked Marc about the song afterwards and he said, ‘Oh, that’s OUT, did you see?’ Then he looked at me, surprised, and said, ‘How did you KNOW about that?'”
The Zone thanks Alix for sharing her experience with us. FINDING NEVERLAND just sounds better and better. According to Alix, the screening in Mill Valley was a bit success: The film festival’s board of directors “spoke reverently” about FINDING NEVERLAND and called it “a near perfect film,” and the sophisticated Marin County audience loved it.