New Stills from Tobe Hooper’s Djinn; UAE Producers Appear to Be Blocking Release

Steve Barton   |  

Jan 7, 2012

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A few new stills from Tobe Hooper’s long awaited Djinn have popped up online, and along with them comes the news that the film’s producers in the United Arab Emirates appear to be attempting to block its release. Read on for the details revealed thus far.

According to Movie Sushi (translation courtesy of Google Translate), last March Tobe Hooper went to Abu Dhabi to direct the horror film Djinn, funded by Image Nation (whose president is Mohammed al-Mubarak) and supported by the local government. The film was completed in October 2011, and the trailer shown at the Toronto Film Festival indicated a release date of January 2012. But it has not been heard from again. The reason? It seems that some prominent member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi has seen the movie and judged it “unfit to provide an accurate image of the UAE.” With claims of it being politically subversive, Mubarak (who probably received a generous donation) is blocking distribution.

Also, according to the site’s source, Djinn was recently shown to a select audience in London, obtaining such good results that two large distribution companies immediately offered to buy it, but Mubarak did not even want to listen to their offers.

Even so, Hooper (along with all the technical and artistic cast who worked on the film) is trying to get things moving (and supposedly an official trailer is coming soon), but he’s battling claims that “the film does not come out because it addresses a type of witchcraft that is not recognized with the beliefs of the nation.” Early plot summaries stated that Djinn follows an Emirati couple who return home from a trip and discover that their new apartment in a luxury high-rise built on the site of an abandoned fishing village is also home to the malevolent beings known as “djinn.”

Looks like an uphill battle is under way, but keep it here, and we’ll keep you posted on future developments. In the meantime here’s some eye candy to tide us over.

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