‘You’re Battling Scary Men’: Tim Minchin Talks Fighting For His Axed $100m Animated Film

Aussie talent Tim Minchin has previously described the axing of his $100m animated DreamWorks film as unbearable, but he didn’t let it go down without a fight.

The animated musical, Larrikins, which was set to feature Hugh Jackman, was scrapped after four years in development following Comcast’s acquisition of DreamWorks in 2016.

Speaking with The Music about his latest single, Leaving LA, which details his turbulent time living in the US, Minchin said the process of getting a film made in Hollywood “was a battle”.

“You’re battling big forces; you’re battling famously scary men, these people that you write about when you talk about these guys, these Weinstein types, but without the rapiness,” he said.

“Weinstein’s rapiness is just a part of his personality. There’s a lot of people who have all the rest of it in Hollywood who aren’t in jail but are still fucking weird bullies and stuff.

“If you want to swim with sharks, you can’t be surprised if you get a nip on the arse, but it just, in the end, if they take your work off you, you can’t fight – you can’t do anything. And I tried, I called meetings with the owners of Universal Pictures and I was like, ‘What have you done?’ They’re all sitting there going, ‘Why are you talking to us? You’re not meant to talk to us.’ And I’m like, ‘Because I’m Australian and I don’t care what your rules are.’”

Even while working on the film, which was one of the reasons he moved to LA, Minchin was butting heads with executives.

“People in LA always go, ‘We want your talent! We want your vision!’ And then you go, ‘Here’s my vision.’ And they go, ‘Not like that.’ And you go, ‘Well, you asked me to come here – I didn’t ask you for a job. You asked me to come, you begged me to come, so I’m here and giving you my take,’” he said.

“I was having those fights and that’s really interesting and I don’t mind all that. I’m not particularly defensive, I can be very passionate in my defence of something I believe is the right idea, but I’ve worked over the years on taking criticism, which everyone finds hard – certainly I did early on and I’ve gotten better at that.”

Last week, Minchin rescheduled his Australian tour to January next year due to COVID-19.

For more details on the rescheduled tour, click on theGuide, and keep an eye on The Music for the full Tim Minchin interview.