Orson Welles’ final movie will finally be released next year.
The acclaimed filmmaker had worked on ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ – which chronicles a temperamental film director battling with the Hollywood establishment – for 15 years until his death in 1985 but legal battles among the rights holders meant it has never been finished or screened.
However, Royal Road Entertainment claim they have now agreed to buy the rights and aim to have the film finished for a screening on May 6, 100 years since the director was born.
‘Other Side of the Wind’ line producer Frank Marshall said: "We will set up a cutting room and Peter Bogdanovich and I will assemble the film.
"We have notes from Orson Welles. We have scenes that weren’t quite finished, and we need to add music. We will get it done. The good news is that it won’t take so long because of all of the technology today."
Royal Road spent five years negotiating to buy the picture from rights holders Beatrice Welles – the director’s daughter and sole heir – his longterm collaborator and companion Oja Kodar, and production company L’Astrophore.
For Oja – who claims to have a 45-minute edited work print made of the film by Welles – she felt the time was right for the movie to be made.
She said: "I am going to sign the contract. The catalyst is the hundred-year anniversary and everybody is moving in a kind of wave. When I finally see it on the screen, then I will tell you that the film is done."
Meanwhile, Beatrice said it took the "right people" to come along and persuade her of their vision.
She told the New York Times newspaper: "It took the right people to come along. They wanted to talk to me and did not want any outsiders.
"Until now this movie has been under lock and key under French law. I had the good fortune to be able to protect it.
"When we talked, we laughed and joked. It was just this amazing rapport. What came through to me was their true love of art.""
Orson Welles last film to be released
