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Town & Country | town_l
BENCH WARMERS Keaton and Hawn go to the dogs in ''Town & Country''
Town and Country: New Line Cinema

Cue the finger pointing! Since 1998, New Line's ''Town & Country'' has spawned multimillion dollar rewrites, costly reshoots, one missed release date after another, bad buzz of epic proportions, and perhaps an executive firing. Shooting began in June '98 with an unfinished script and the comedy, about midlife marital crises, became a fevered work in progress. Then, when the original ending tested poorly, rewrites ensued through '99, while Chelsom waited until April 2000 to reassemble his busy cast.

Now, with the film in the can at a reported final budget of more than $80 million (up from an initial $55 million), the blame game kicks into high gear. Will it land on perfectionist Beatty? His camp swears that he was just an actor for hire. All Chelsom will say is, ''I've never, ever gone over budget or schedule on any film I've made.... I'm a cheap filmmaker if asked to be, and I'm very fast. This film is a complete exception.'' But all is not necessarily lost. ''There's no question it was a very difficult film,'' he says. ''It would be very depressing if the results were not good -- but they're good.''


Posted Mar 30, 2001 | Order Article Reprints