Sharon Osbourne responds

Last Tuesday, Extended Play did a post concerning Penelope Spheeris' Ozzfest documentary "We Sold Our Souls for Rock 'n' Roll." Shot in the late '90s, the film has never seen wide release and has been held up in what has been reported as "music copyright issues."

Last week's blog post was written after Rolling Stone interviewed Ozzy Osbourne's son, Jack, who told the publication he is filming a documentary about his father. Instead of discussing Jack's film, Extended Play used the opportunity to highlight Spheeris' still-unavailable film, writing that it "remains a fascinating look at Ozzy, the music business and life as part of the traveling circus that used to be Ozzfest."

In the post, Spheeris said the film may never be released.

Extended Play wrote:

Spheeris said, "I don't know. I think that's more a question for Sharon Osbourne."

Spheeris, who said the film's rights belonged with the Osbournes, said she spent 3 1/2 years filming and working on "Sold Our Souls," bits of which she said had surfaced in Ozzy-related TV and promotional specials. She said that a week before the movie was to be released, she received a call from a lawyer who said the music had not been cleared, as the bands performing on Ozzfest had not signed any agreements to be used in her documentary.   

Said the "Wayne's World" director, "The good news is that I became an expert on music clearance."

For a while, she hoped the film would eventually see the light of day, but today Spheeris seems resigned to the fact that it may never be shown in the form she intended.

"I woke up literally for a couple years and opened my eyes and tears just came streaming down.... [Sharon] basically asked me to stop showing. I'm not going to go up against Sharon," Spheeris said.

At the time, calls and e-mails were placed to representatives of Sharon Osbourne, asking about the possibility of the film ever seeing release, and to respond to Spheeris' comments. Sharon's publicist with the Mitch Schneider Organization later replied with what she said was an e-mailed response from Sharon.

The e-mail is printed below in its entirety.

Dear Todd,

In answer to your questions:

We would love for “We Sold Our Souls for Rock 'n' Roll” to eventually be released. We didn’t invest over a million dollars in the movie to keep it locked away. In reality, we were unable to secure the necessary music licensing and talent releases from all of the bands that participated in the documentary. We needed a substantial amount of money to secure these releases so as a business proposition it just didn’t make sense to pour even more money into the project. We all tried to find an independent backer to come in, but were unable to find anyone.

As far as not allowing Penelope Spheeris to show the documentary at film festivals, please see below the list of festivals where I know that the film was shown (and there may have been more).

-Sundance Film Festival (2001)
-SXSW Film Festival (2001)
-Melbourne International Film Festival (2001)
-Sydney Film Festival (2001)
-Singapore International Film Festival (2001)
-Silver Lake Film Festival (2001)
-Chicago Underground Film Festival (2001)
-San Francisco Independent Film Festival (2002)
-Boston Underground Film Festival (2002)

I also arranged for two industry screenings in Los Angeles and London that I totally financed at great expense in an attempt to find a distributor for the film.

Tell me, what sense does it make for us to invest one million dollars in a film to let it sit? I truly wish that Penelope had found us an independent backer so we could have finished the project. Let her find us a backer to complete the project and we’ll do it. 

Finally, I find your comments about “We Sold Our Souls…” being a documentary on Ozzy Osbourne very misleading. It is not! “We Sold Our Souls…” is a documentary on the Ozzfest summer touring festival filmed in 1999. My son, Jack, is producing a documentary on his father’s life.  The two are totally different projects. 

Sincerely,

Sharon Osbourne

Photo: Getty Images

Comments

[steve mccroskey]

I saw this film at the Sundance Film Festival. It is a fabulous documentary on the road life of the rockers who performed at the venues for Ozzfest, I don't understand how money and music licensing politics have been the roadblock to releasing this great work of Penelope Spheeris. It has candid and lucid interviews from the performing musicians. It contains wonderful interviews from the rock fans, which traveled from all parts of the USA to attend these shows. Please, Sharon, let this documentary be shown to the music lovers of the world... Please, let it be released for ALL to enjoy !!!

[~*~ TJ ~*~]

Well this is good news...well to me. I love The osbournes Especially Jack. Hope to hear more from them soon!