by Reymundo Salao“John Carter” lead actor Taylor Kitsch talks negatively about the Philippines on The Letterman Show. Problem is that it wasn’t the Philippines that he was talking about.
While he was on the David Letterman Show to promote the upcoming movie "John Carter" Taylor Kitsch talked about the shooting of his other upcoming movie (wherein he co-stars with John Travolta, Benecio Del Toro, Uma Thurman, among others), entitled "Savages" which is directed by Oliver Stone. And in this interview, he said that the movie was shot in the Philippines, and began to recount how he was stopped at the airport and was given a hard time by a customs official. What's worse is that the customs official made a pass at asking for Taylor's iphone unit.
[READ MORE after the jump & check out the video of the interview]
WATCH YOUR MOUTH, TAYLOR!
Before you could pull out a paper bag and turn it into a mask of shame, because this sadly has a high plausibility of actually happening (well, we just hope that the horror stories at our customs are a thing of the past), it should be noted that the movie was actually NOT shot in the Philippines, but was actually shot on the island of Moyo in Indonesia’s West Nusa Tenggara province.
Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon expressed his initial reaction about the matter "My concern stems from the fact that such an allegation not only puts the Bureau of Customs (which I head) in a bad light but the country as well. For the past five months, I have been trying to reverse the negative image of the BOC, so incidents like this undermine those efforts"
Biazon examined the interview closely and concluded that what Kitsch was describing was not about the Philippines [read Biazon's full article here]. His analysis was later confirmed by the fact that A) Authorities had found no customs or immigration records of Kitsch's visit; B) the Philippine government had not given any permits for location shooting for the Oliver Stone-directed "Savages" C) "Savages" was shot partially in Indonesia; the Philippines was not among its list of places to be shot in. Dont you think that it would have been big big news for "Savages" to have been shot here; think about it, if the "Bourne Legacy" caused quite a hype with just Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz--how much more with "Savages" which includes such an enormously stellar cast? (did we mention that the cast also includes Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch, and Aaron Johnson?)
Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said in a text message via ABS-CBN News:
"We believe that Taylor Kitsch made an erroneous statement which demeaned our country and an apology would be a proper decent response"
If you ask me, the kid was being stupid. He has fault on the matter, and he should apologize about it, but it seems pretty clear that he had no intention of really consciously offending the Philippines. What was just sad is that the damage has been done. There goes another big demerit aired on an international mainstream talk show.
ABOUT THE MOVIE
Oliver Stone's SAVAGES is based on the novel of the same name by Don Winslow.
Synopsis: When their shared hippie girlfriend, O (Blake Lively), is kidnapped, two marijuana growers — University of California, Berkeley graduate Ben (Aaron Johnson) and former U.S. Navy SEAL Chon (Taylor Kitsch) — confront a Mexican drug cartel to rescue her. Uma Thurman plays O's mother and John Travolta plays a DEA agent.
SAVAGES is set for a JULY 6, 2012 official release, and it will go head-to-head in the box office against the upcoming Marvel reboot "The Amazing Spider-Man" It seems like a clever counter-programming to go against that Marvel superhero movie.
Taylor Kitsch's other movie "JOHN CARTER" is set to be released internationally this March 9, 2012.
YOU may wanna check out more about Don Winslow's book SAVAGES, the book Oliver Stone is adapting into an upcoming motion picture...
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