DADDY AND THEM

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LAST UPDATE: JUNE 10, 2003

DADDY AND THEM is coming in July on Showtime (A big Prine Shrine Thanks to Roy Gilman for the notice!!)

These times are CT:
Showtime East 07/10/03 8:00 PM
Showtime Showcase East 07/11/03 6:30 AM
Showtime Showcase East 07/11/03 9:45 PM
Showtime East 07/15/03 8:00 PM
Showtime Showcase East 07/16/03 12:00 PM

PREVIOUS UPDATES

AprilL 2, 2003
DVD will be released in the U.K May 5, 2003!! (PAL format which will not play in USA DVD players) If you can play a 'region 2' DVD then pre-order yours at PLAY.COM. (Sorry, I don't know if it will ever release in the U.S. or play on Showtime)

January 20, 2003
DADDY AND THEM FOUND IN THE UK - see review by Peter Leslie!
Splashdvd & Blockbuster.co.uk is showing its available on 1/20/03. Still no word as to when Showtime intends on airing it.

June 17, 2002
Long-Shelved Thornton Film Being Dumped
Billy Bob Thornton's Daddy and Them, shelved by Miramax for nearly three years despite boasting a cast that includes, in addition to Thornton, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Kelly Preston, Andy Griffith, Brenda Blethyn, Ben Affleck, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jim Varney (in his final appearance before his death), will go directly to cable, Screen International reported today (Monday). The British trade publication said that the film, which Thornton wrote and directed, will debut on Showtime in 2003. thanks to Jason Hernandez Lexington, KY for this update!

Showtime Networks gains rights to 'Daddy and Them': Showtime Networks has acquired U.S. premiere rights to "Daddy and Them," a Miramax film written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, who also stars along with Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Kelly Preston, Andy Griffith, Brenda Blethyn and the late Jim Varney. Jamie Lee Curtis and Ben Affleck make cameo appearances. The film, a tale of murder and family set in Arkansas, will premiere in 2003.

Release dates
Country Date
USA 6 June 2001 (Newport International Film Festival)
Canada 28 August 2001 (Montréal Film Festival)
USA 26 October 2001 (limited to Macon, GA; 5 theaters)
Mexico 2002
Norway 22 May 2002 (video premiere)
Argentina 30 May 2002
Italy 14 June 2002
USA 2003 (TV premiere - Showtime?)

2/02 DADDY AND THEM - opens, oh hell, your guess is as good as ours
Having unspooled last August at the Nashville Independent Film Festival (where it placed fourth among the festival's audience favorites), Miramax's DADDY AND THEM was scheduled for a Fall 2001 release, but we have learned not to hold our collective breath on this one. This wry comedy about a dysfunctional family stars Billy Bob, Andy Griffith, Laura Dern, Kelly Preston, John Prine (who got some fine notices for his perf), Ben Affleck, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Blethyn, Diane Ladd, Sandra Seacat, and the late Jim Varney in his last (and, we hear, his greatest) screen role. Billy Bob wrote and directed this valentine to family dysfunction, which was shot on location in Arkansas. We got a peek at the script, and it's pretty damn funny. It should also be noted that the reason this film has been long in its wait for release is because, contractually, it could not be released before ALL THE PRETTY HORSES opened. Keep an ear peeled for John Prine's song, "In Spite of Ourselves," which is the film's theme song (thanks for the heads up, Planeteer Colette!). We're also looking forward to Dwight Yoakam's cover of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" when the soundtrack hits the marketplace. Last week, Daily Variety gave this film a strong review, particularly for Billy Bob's solid writing.

From Nashville Scene: Critics write about the best movies of 2001 Jan 10-16, 2002
Daddy and Them
Billy Bob Thornton. Barber, bandit, broke-dick boyfriend--Thornton was great as all three last year, and his acclaimed role as a death row guard in Monster's Ball hasn't even reached local theaters yet. The biggest surprise was his genial, unfairly delayed comedy Daddy and Them. Maybe that's because most any actor can give an interesting performance for the Coens--and Thornton's rigorous minimalism as The Man Who Wasn't There surpassed even their standards--but it takes a fearless man to play a scene on the toilet with John Prine. Jim Ridley

1/17/01
I discovered that Miramax has removed "Daddy and Them" from their "soon on Home Video" (remember it used to be "coming soon to Theatres") and I couldn't find any more information on the when or even if, ever, the movie would be available for public viewing. Later that same day I received this article done with Billy Bob Thornton. Folks, it sounds like "Daddy And Them" might be more than shelved. ~ Reeda Buresh, Webmistress of the John Prine Shrine
Read on:

BILLY BOB SAYS HE AND WIFE ANGELINA JOLIE 'HAVE BEEN MISQUOTED A LOT"
By David Germain 17/01/02
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Billy Bob Thornton points out that his notoriety exceeds his clout in Hollywood, a place he finds bemusing, benumbing and generally at odds with the sort of work he wants to do.
"There's a real common misconception that I'm like a big deal. I'm really not," Thornton said. "I'm a big deal only because of people like Roger Ebert, Jeffrey Lyons, Joel Siegel, critics like that. That's the only reason anybody ever hears about me."
    Probably true until a couple of years ago, when Thornton was best known for his good old southern boy name and a handful of acclaimed smaller hits such as Sling Blade and A Simple Plan. Both films earned Thornton Oscar acting nominations, and he won a screenplay Academy Award for Sling Blade.
For the past year or two, it's been more than film-loving critics talking about Thornton. He drew attention for his losing battle with Miramax, which Thornton blames for ruining his most recent directing effort, All the Pretty Horses.
    After a nearly three-year on-screen lapse since Pushing Tin, Thornton, 46, has been all over theatres and in competition for fresh awards with The Man Who Wasn't There, Monster's Ball and Bandits. He earned dual Golden Globe nominations, in the drama category as a blackmailing barber in the Coen brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There and the musical or comedy category as a neurotic bank robber in Bandits.
    Last fall, Thornton made his recording debut with the dark-edged country album Private Radio.
Of course, Thornton's higher profile may have something to do with his marriage to Angelina Jolie in 2000 and their quick ascension to the title of weirdest couple in Hollywood.
    Gossip columns have had a field day with Thornton and Jolie's rather endearing candour. The two have proudly shown off their tattoos of each other's names and spoken in gooey fashion about finding a soul mate. They talk about the lockets they wear with drops of their spouse's blood.
Their individual quirks -- Jolie's fixation with daggers, Thornton's fear of antique furniture -- have added to their little cult of weirdo-ism. Truth is, Thornton said, he and Jolie are pretty ordinary people.
"Before we were actually married, individually, we probably played up the edgy side of ourselves because we thought that's really what people want," Thornton said in an interview. "People don't want to hear everything's OK. People don't want to hear that you just kind of watch TV and every now and then go to dinner when you can stomach going out in public.
    "It's the other things we do that have been played up, and we both have been misquoted a lot. We've been taken the wrong way, had half of what we said printed. A lot of stuff which has turned us into some sort of blood-sucking vampires, which is just not true. We don't have a dungeon. I don't only eat orange food."
    Thornton's image has been further shaped by the fringe characters he plays -- the taciturn haircutter of The Man Who Wasn't There, the amiably dim brother of A Simple Plan, the lonely former executioner of Monster's Ball, the retarded guardian angel of Sling Blade.
Thornton's other films include Primary Colors, U-Turn and the road comedy Waking up in Reno, briefly in theatres last fall and due out in wider release this year.
He's preparing to star in Levity, in which he plays an ex-con seeking forgiveness for killing a teen during a robbery attempt. The sobering film complements the dark tone of The Man Who Wasn't There and Monster's Ball.
    "Kind of the third one in the boxed set," Thornton said. "A friend of mine told me I'm in my blue period."
    "I like outcasts of society," Thornton said. "I've felt like one myself. Still do. I'm a fairly normal person, really, contrary to what they write in the papers. Fairly normal. But I kind of don't fit in."
Born in Arkansas, Thornton acted in high school and was a singer and drummer in local rock bands. His father was a teacher, his mother a psychic (Thornton wrote the supernatural thriller The Gift, starring Cate Blanchett, in his mother's honour).
    He came to Hollywood in the early 1980s, took acting classes and eventually began landing bit parts in TV and film. Thornton first caught critical attention as a psychotic killer in One False Move in 1991, a film he co-wrote.
    Thornton was married and divorced four times previously and has three children from past marriages. Before wedding Jolie, Thornton dated actress Laura Dern, with whom he co-starred in the still-unreleased Daddy and Them, a comedy Thornton wrote and directed before making All the Pretty Horses.
Daddy and Them was Thornton's southern take on a Woody Allen dysfunctional family film. But with Miramax owning the film, Daddy and Them may never get released because of the bad blood over All the Pretty Horses, he said.
    "I don't think there's really a relationship there anymore, and I don't know that they'd want to spend a lot of money on it," Thornton said.
He said he delivered a two-hour, 40-minute cut of All the Pretty Horses, which Miramax sliced to just under two hours. The released film was quickly dismissed by critics and audiences.
    "That was a bad experience. But making that movie was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had," Thornton said. "I loved making that movie, and I loved what we did, but nobody will ever see what we did."
    Except for the NASA honcho he played in Armageddon, Thornton has shunned Hollywood action films. He did Armageddon on the advice of agents and handlers who told him he needed to appear in a big-budget flick.
    "I don't think there was anything wrong with Armageddon," Thornton said. "What I find wrong with it is not the thing itself. It's the arena and the concept and what it does to the public. That's what I find wrong with movies like that.
    "Movies that I do and that friends of mine do that we do from our guts, that we do for no money, that we do for the sake of the thing and to try to move people in some way or show them something on a personal level, those movies suffer because of big blockbuster movies that numb the public."
Jolie and Thornton, who co-starred as a married couple in Pushing Tin, hope to work together again, preferably in a Frank Capra-like comedy, Thornton said.
    Despite his four failed marriages, Thornton said his and Jolie's will last.
    "Just finally got the right person," he said. "I think some things are just meant to be. I never had expectations before. I was just doing whatever kind of came along. Nice people and all that, but I don't think any of them would have wanted to stay married to me, either.
    "It just was with the wrong people, and I was the wrong person for them. And now I'm with someone who's my friend. That's it."

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