UPDATE: Lohan movie ‘Inferno’ sets off internal firestorm
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We thought Lindsay Lohan’s life was full of drama--but it turns out that the people behind her new movie ‘Inferno’ are creating some commotion of their own.
On Tuesday, we reported that Lohan has signed on to play Linda Lovelace in a new movie about the troubled life of the late ‘70s porn star. The word came from Wali Razaqi, who says he is a producer on the film. Razaqi also told us that Bill Pullman was attached to the project to star as Hugh Hefner, but now says he was ‘misinformed’ and that the actor will not be in the movie after all, which Pullman’s manager confirmed.
Ever since our story was published, we’ve also been bombarded by messages from two other filmmakers, Chris Hanley and Jordan Gertner, who say they’ve never heard of Razaqi and that they are the rightful producers on the project. Razaqi maintains he is a producer on the film and says his company’s name has been on the ‘Inferno’ script that’s been sent around town for months.
The film’s director, Matthew Wilder, says Razaqi is an old friend who has been involved with the movie, but says Hanley and Gertner are the ‘bona fide’ producers.
This all sounds like a messy producer squabble to us -- one which we’ll leave up to the Producers Guild of America to arbitrate down the road -- although it does highlight the chaos of the indie-film world, where even a seemingly innocuous word like producer can be a relative (and loaded) term.
The important point in all of this is that Lohan will star in the project. Perhaps ironically, for once it’s her movie -- and not the actress herself -- that’s creating a stir.
--Amy Kaufman