Well, we recently caught up with Cadwell, and he addressed the delay as well as provided us with two exclusive photos from the movie. What follows is our exclusive interview with Cadwell so give it (and the stills) a look below, and then let us know what you think!
Dread Central: Why hasn’t Behind the Sightings been released?
Tony Cadwell: The film was completed and set to be released in 2017. As per our agreements with the family and the production company, we sat down with them for a screening of the final cut. It was six family members, myself, and our executive producer, Tommy Vlahopoulos. Everything went great, or so I thought. About a week later Tommy Vlahopoulos gets a call from one of the attorney’s representing a member of the family. This set forth a chain of events that caused the delay.
DC: Do you know what happened in that phone call?
TC: Apparently, one member of the family was not happy with some of the footage we were releasing in the final cut. According to our agreement with the family, in order for the film to be released, the family has to approve of the film. Several days after the phone call, I was told the family wasn’t willing to sign off until certain changes were made.
TC: I have to be careful with what I disclose about this. I am legally bound by several contracts, including non-disclosure agreements and arbitration. I understand and respect their point of view. These are their family members that we are showing on screen, and we want to do it in a way that respects their loved ones.
DC: Why didn’t you coordinate with the family when assembling your initial cut?
TC: Going back and looking at this project, I definitely should have tried to get the family involved more. I really should have, but that’s hindsight. I was essentially given six hard drives containing a lot of footage. The instructions that I was given was to go through the footage and tell their story. Nothing was off limits to me. I was told I was allowed to show everything. However, people change their mind.
DC: When can we expect to see Behind the Sightings?
TC: I haven’t been given a concrete date yet. We addressed the family’s concerns and now have a cut of the film that was signed off on recently by all family members. On the legal side I am awaiting clearance from our legal team on some of the footage that we discovered on the hard drive. I can also disclose that we recently discovered two of the hard drives had hidden, password-protected files. I really want to see what those files are. We are working with a cybersecurity team to try and access those files. Once these last two issues are worked out, I believe we will have a release date this year.
Thanks for keeping us up-to-date on Behind the Sightings, Tony! To stay updated on the film and its release, fans can follow it on Facebook.
Synopsis:
Behind the Sightings follows Todd and Jessica Smith, two filmmakers from Raleigh, North Carolina, who set out to produce a documentary exploring the highly publicized, creepy clown sighting epidemic, which was investigated by local law enforcement. As the young married couple ventured into Peachtree Way, Nash County, in search of clowns, what they found was far from funny.