Who’s Got the Right to ‘Color’ Final Cut? : Director Richard Rush and Producers Battle Over Fate of Bruce Willis Thriller

Director Richard Rush and Cinergi Productions are embroiled in a major creative dispute over the outcome of “Color of Night,” an erotic psychological thriller starring Bruce Willis and Jane March.

The filmmaker and production company are into their fourth day of a Directors Guild of America-initiated arbitration hearing to resolve which party is entitled to final cut of the movie.

Sources said Rush filed with the DGA for arbitration after being fired off the picture during post-production, which due to an extended schedule was causing the cost of the movie--already $40 million--to go even higher. For several weeks, the director has been feuding with the film’s executive producer, Andy Vajna, head of the Santa Monica-based Cinergi, over coming up with a releasable cut of the movie.

After several negative test screenings of Rush’s version, which audiences reportedly found confusing, Cinergi came up with its own cut that reportedly had a different ending, fewer subplots and is a bit less sexually explicit. The filmmaker is hoping for an arbitration ruling that will reinstate his cut, sources said.

In any case, one source close to the situation said, “neither (Rush’s nor Cinergi’s) version tested high enough to release.” The source said Vajna had initially been very patient with Rush, trying to work with him in suggesting changes he believed were best for the movie based on audience response.

But a Cinergi insider said Rush was “very, very stubborn,” when it came to accepting any creative input on the editing from Vajna or other executives, “and finally everyone got fed up with him.”

“He doesn’t want to listen to anybody,” the source added. “He works 24 hours a day, seven days a week--has five people working around the clock--and takes four frames out and puts three back.”

Rush--who has not directed a movie since making the multi-Oscar-nominated 1980 film “The Stuntman”--did not return repeated calls.

About three weeks ago, the Walt Disney Co., which is distributing “Color of Night” under its Hollywood Pictures banner, pushed back the film’s release from its original April 29 opening without announcing a new date, to allow Rush more editing time. (The tentative new release date is now late August.)

At that time, Rush told The Times that the delay was not related to any creative differences he was having with Cinergi, nor to negative reaction the film had received at some test screenings.

While sources had maintained that the plot needed to be simplified and that the ending needed to be reworked, Rush told The Times that he was generally “personally very happy with the movie” and that he was glad to have additional editing time to give the film “the polish it deserved.”

Vajna acknowledged then that it was his decision to push back the release to accommodate Rush because clearly “the picture wasn’t ready.”

In the film--which contains extensive frontal nudity and various steamy love scenes--Willis plays a confrontational therapist who is so traumatized by the suicide of one of his patients that he leaves New York and moves to Los Angeles to go into practice with his best friend (Scott Bakula). When his colleague is brutally murdered by a mysterious intruder, Willis’ character suspects it’s someone from his late friend’s therapy group, and he takes over the sessions hoping to discover the killer’s identity. In the process, he has a reckless, passionate affair with a beautiful young woman (March, who starred in “The Lover”). Outtakes of some of the film’s most explicit scenes, including one in which Willis and March make love in a swimming pool, have circulated around Hollywood.

The ratings board of the Motion Picture Assn. of America objected to some of the sex and violence in Rush’s first cut. The film, currently unrated, will have to be resubmitted when a final cut is ready for release. Rush and Cinergi are contractually obligated to deliver a picture with an R rating, since Disney does not release NC-17 movies.

An arbitration ruling is expected either late today or early next week.

As a matter of policy, the DGA refuses to comment on all arbitrations. Rulings are also confidential.

Neither Vajna nor Hollywood Pictures would comment on the dispute.

Rush is being represented in the arbitration by the guild’s lawyers, who seek to quickly resolve differences between DGA members and production companies in the legally binding proceedings.

According to the DGA-Producers Basic Agreement, the right of final cut is not allocated. Only a handful of directors in Hollywood, including Steven Spielberg, have a contract right to a final cut with ultimate decision-making authority over creative and artistic decisions about the final version of a film.