London Fields was meant to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival all the way back in 2015, but it was pulled from the lineup due to some ugly legal wrangling, and hasn’t seen the light of day since.
Director Mathew Cullen sued the producers for fraud; they in turn sued him for breach of contract, and took further action against star Amber Heard, saying she had breached performance and promotional obligations.
Now, Heard has fired back with a suit of her own, alleging that Chris and Roberta Hanley, the film’s producer and writer, recorded explicit sex scenes for her character using a body double, and tried to make it look as if she’d performed them.
Per reports in the NY Times, these scenes appear in a “Producer’s Cut” of the film. Heard’s lawyer wrote:
After reading the script, she insisted on specific restrictions about nudity and sex scenes in the film as a condition to agreeing to appear in the Movie. [Christopher] … expressly agreed to Heard’s terms, and they were memorialized in the Nudity Rider to her contract.
The Hanleys … caused to be filmed secretly several additional nude and sex scenes with a body double for Heard and included them in the ‘Producer’s Cut’ — also in violation of the Nudity Rider… The secret filming of this body double footage was not on the schedule that had been provided to Heard and was shot with a skeleton crew only after Heard had completed filming and had left the set. The body double footage included an explicit pornographic sex scene that Heard would never have agreed to do herself … the body double footage was designed and intended to leave anyone who saw the images with the distinct impression that it was Heard.
London Fields, which is based on a novel by Martin Amis, also stars Billy Bob Thornton, Cara Delevingne and an uncredited Johnny Depp. It currently has no release date.
Source: NY Times.
Photo: Axelle / Bauer Griffin.
