PROJECTIONIST CANNED OVER NEGATIVE 'SILVER SURFER' REVIEW...CLAIMS FOX INVOLVED IN FIRING (THR, THB, AICN)

By Nancy Vialatte

A Memphis, Tennessee projectionist working for the Malco Theatre chain has lost his job after writing an early review of Fox's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" for web site Ain't It Cool News.

Jesse Morrison claims that Fox was behind his employer’s decision to suspend him for an undetermined period but the studio denied the charge.

While studios and filmmakers have endured early reviews of their movies, both negative and positive, on Web sites since the early days of the Internet, the incident might mark the first time someone working in the entertainment industry has lost a job for voicing an early opinion online. (THR)

On Saturday, AintItCool posted a negative review by Morrison (who goes by the online moniker Memflix) under the headline "Memflix crushes all hope for 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.' "

Two days after the drubbing appeared, Morrison was called into a meeting with Malco senior vp Jimmy Tashie and, according to Morrison, was "suspended until further notice," with the suggestion that he would not be asked to return.

Morrison said Tashie told him that " Fox called them that morning and threatened to take away the press and trade screenings because of this whole thing. They were upset."

Asked if Fox had any role in the suspension, Tashie said: "Absolutely none." The exec said his company received a call from Fox that said "there's somebody there working for (Malco) who is writing reviews in advance. That's all they said. No one asked us to do anything. We have been in business 95 years, and this is the first time anything like this happened. And this boy knew what he was doing was the wrong thing. ... He was in a position of trust and he violated that trust." (THR)

Some entertainment companies, including film productions, do ask workers to sign confidentiality agreements, agreeing not to disclose information. Morrison said he had never been asked to sign such an agreement, though he would have if asked.

Meanwhile, AICN’s Moriarty has taken up Morrison’s case:

Have I mentioned yet that 20th Century Fox can go fuck themselves? (AICN)

For a megacorporation who make hundreds of millions of dollars a year whether they’re cranking out dogshit or the occasional decent movie, they sure are a bunch of giant pussies when it comes to the slightest criticism of their films. Our reviewer, Jesse Morrison, known here on the site as Memflix, was a projectionist who ran trade screenings for a theater chain. He’s written many reviews for us before, but when he wrote one for FANTASTIC FOUR, Fox went into hypersensitive overdrive. They tracked him down and had him fired, threatening to pull their business from the entire chain over that review. (AICN)

Think about that for a minute... this is one megacorporation threatening to blackball another corporation because one guy didn’t like their movie and had the stones to say so. (AICN)

The Hot Blog’s David Poland weighs in with another line of thinking:

This is the mindset that helps piracy thrive. This is a smart adult who works in the industry (Drew a.k.a. Moriarty) arguing that an employee of a screening company who breaks the rules and flaunts it publicly is only being fired in Drew’s mind because the complaining company is EVIL. (THB)

But as usual, I can't fault Drew... because his six-year-old mindset has been fostered by the studios themselves. The studios have chosen to co-opt AICN at every turn and are, for all intents and purposes, in business with this site, the most powerful in geekdom. What else is a six year old to think when most of the authorities in town are telling him it's ok by way of their embrace of what his site does? (THB)

Morrison told The Hollywood Repoerter he is weighing his options. "I'm hoping to get a job as a professional movie reviewer, but I don't know what's going to happen with that. I guess you could say I'm at some kind of crossroads right now."