Filmmaker Stares Down a Challenge

Director Barry Blaustein isn’t ready to go into the ring with Vince McMahon. “I’d get my ass kicked,” he says. But the veteran comedy screenwriter, whose new wrestling documentary, “Beyond the Mat,” has provoked the ire of the World Wrestling Federation kingpin, is not backing away from a fight.

“This was a five-year labor of love, and Vince is trying to bury it,” Blaustein says of the film, one of a dozen finalists in this year’s best documentary category of Academy Awards. “I’m not one of his wrestlers and I’m not going to be bullied by him.”

The documentary, due for release March 17 in 250 theaters nationwide by Lions Gate Films, takes a candid backstage look at the world of pro wrestling, focusing on McMahon and WWF star Mick Foley (known as “Mankind”), as well as several older wrestlers whose glory days are behind them. Although McMahon signed consent forms allowing Blaustein to film him and his wrestlers, the WWF chief now seems intent on distancing himself from the movie as much as possible.

McMahon, who controls the bulk of advertising on his TV wrestling outlets, refused to accept TV spots for the film on his WWF broadcasts, including UPN’s “Smackdown” and USA Networks’ “World Wrestling Federation.” McMahon is such a power at UPN that the network has refused to accept ads for the film on any of its programming. The WWF also has sent Lions Gate a cease-and-desist letter refusing it permission to use McMahon’s name or the likeness of his star wrestlers in any advertising for the film.

“Barry’s right--I can be a bully when warranted,” McMahon says. “But we don’t want to bury the movie. It will bury itself. It’s not entertaining in the least.”

The whole affair sounds like a smack-talking wrestling confrontation. But Lions Gate Films says the movie has been harmed by McMahon’s tactics. Lions Gate co-president Tom Ortenberg says he booked TV spots on McMahon’s wrestling programs three weeks ago. But he was only informed last Monday, the day the ads were scheduled to run, that WWF would not air them.

“Vince is conducting a personal vendetta against this film,” Ortenberg says. “His actions show a phenomenal mean-spiritedness. Not running the ads is a devastating blow to the film, but not telling us until the last minute that he wouldn’t run the ads was a deliberately hurtful action intended to do as much damage to the film as possible.”

WWF marketing executive Jim Byrne says the WWF did not delay its decision. “We received the spot on Thursday, reviewed it on Friday and rejected it on Monday,” he says. “We didn’t accept the spots because we don’t permit third-party wrestling product to be advertised in the body of our shows. It creates consumer confusion that it is somehow a product owned or managed by the WWF. We don’t allow ads for any wrestling movies.”

Lions Gate says that while the actual spots weren’t delivered until Thursday, Lions Gate received signed contracts on a WWF letterhead three weeks ago, agreeing to run the TV spots. “They knew exactly what the ads were for,” says Ortenberg. “What could they have possibly thought was in the ads other than footage from a wrestling film?”

Ortenberg says Lions Gate has placed ads for “Beyond the Mat” on TBS, TNT and the Nashville Network, which all feature wrestling programming by WWF competitors. USA Networks has agreed to run ads for the film on non-WWF-controlled programming.

It comes as no surprise that McMahon has enormous clout with TV programmers. His wrestling shows have been a ratings bonanza for both UPN and USA. In recent weeks, USA has been scrambling to keep its WWF franchise, which comes up for renewal in September. According to a story in The Times on Monday, CBS chief Mel Karmazin has offered to make an equity investment of $100 million in the WWF as part of a package that would give CBS both broadcast and cable rights to WWF programming.

Blaustein thinks McMahon has had a love-hate relationship with the movie since Blaustein first met the wrestling czar about four years ago. A screenwriter best known for co-writing such Eddie Murphy hits as “The Nutty Professor” and “Coming to America,” Blaustein persuaded Imagine Entertainment chief Brian Grazer to finance a film that would offer a look past the theatrics of wrestling.

Working on a budget of $500,000, Blaustein spent weeks at a time traveling with wrestlers across the country. “The backstage stuff really interested me,” says Blaustein, who is such a fan that he once had wrestling legend Dusty Rhodes emcee his birthday party. “But I really wanted to show how the wrestlers’ families deal with their careers and the pressures on them away from the ring.”

Blaustein says it took four or five meetings with McMahon before he persuaded him to participate in the documentary. “Each meeting was like starting over,” he recalls. “Vince would say, ‘OK, so tell me about your film.’ And I kept thinking, ‘Geez, this guy doesn’t even remember me.’ ”

McMahon eventually signed a release allowing Blaustein to film backstage and at WWF bouts. Blaustein says he told McMahon that he wanted to show the wrestlers as three-dimensional human beings. “That’s definitely a big source of the tension,” Blaustein says. “Vince wants to sell wrestling as fun and games and showmanship. He doesn’t want anything to seem like a downer.”

As part of his agreement with the WWF, Blaustein showed the film to McMahon and his wife before it had a one-week Oscar-qualifying run last October. “They’re still defrosting the screening room,” Blaustein says. “His wife was very hostile. Vince kept saying, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s such a bummer. I like to bring smiles to people’s faces.’ He was also very upset to see that I’d included [small-time promoter] Roland Alexander. He said, ‘Why’d you put me in the same movie with that fat guy?’ ”

Blaustein says McMahon called him a week later, saying he didn’t regret participating in the film, but wouldn’t do anything to help Blaustein promote it. However, Blaustein says McMahon became upset again when Foley, one of the WWF’s star wrestlers, appeared with Blaustein to promote the film on “Good Morning America.”

“There was steam coming out of the phone,” says Blaustein. “Vince really went ballistic because Mick hadn’t cleared it with him. Vince just doesn’t like it that he gave me permission to do the film and worse still, that he doesn’t own it. He controls the wrestlers and the networks, and he’s upset that he doesn’t control my little movie.”

McMahon would not comment on what he termed as “private conversations” with Blaustein. However, he acknowledged being upset over not owning the film. “Barry is right that we have no financial interest in the movie, which by the way, includes our trademarks and characters,” McMahon says. “And we feel cheated that we have no equity in the movie.”

The WWF’s Jim Byrne confirmed that the WWF has sent a cease and desist letter to Lions Gate, warning it against using McMahon’s name or any WWF likenesses in its film advertising. Byrne says the demand is “consistent with our policy of controlling our intellectual property.” However, Lions Gate, which specializes in releasing controversial fare--it recently distributed “Dogma,” Kevin Smith’s much-debated satire of the Catholic Church--isn’t shying away from a public spitting match.

Ortenberg says Lions Gate plans to run TV and print ads billing the movie as “The film Vince McMahon doesn’t want you to see.” He says McMahon is a public figure and can’t control use of his name. “Vince has tried to cause so much damage to the picture that we feel we have to use his actions to our advantage,” Ortenberg says.

Even though Blaustein has spent years watching staged feuds and skirmishes in the ring, the filmmaker still seems surprised to find himself in the middle of a media smackdown with McMahon.

“Wrestling has always been this amazing blur between fiction and reality,” he says. “But now I feel like I’ve become a part of it. As much as Vince likes to portray himself in the ring as a real [expletive], he’s a pretty good guy. I admire the showman in him. But I feel like now all I’m seeing is the guy in the ring. He’s playing the bad guy.”