LATER, LATTER DAY

After reportedly receiving threats of intimidation from conservative religious groups, Madstone Theaters has cancelled its upcoming Salt Lake City engagement of TLA Releasing’s newest film, Latter Days, which tells the story of a young closeted Mormon who falls in love with another man while serving his missionary assignment in Los Angeles.

“We are extremely upset that Latter Days currently has no venue to premiere in Salt Lake City,” says Raymond Murray, President of TLA Releasing. “We picked up the film through our partnership with production company Funny Boy Films, because of writer-director C. Jay Cox‘s amazing ability to tell a story about a man’s struggle in dealing with his sexuality and faith, a subject many gays and lesbians can certainly relate to.”

Latter Days, the directorial debut of C. Jay Cox (writer of Sweet Home Alabama), had been scheduled to open simultaneously in New York, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City on Friday, January 30. TLA Releasing reportedly received a phone call from Madstone Theaters saying that they were canceling the film’s opening date in Salt Lake City because the company was being threatened with boycotts, protests and membership cancellations from religious groups.

Sources at TLA report that Madstone president Thomas Gruenberg confirmed the threats but denied that they were the cause of the cancellation. “Gruenberg claimed that Latter Days failed to meet the company’s standards of ‘artistic quality and integrity,’ and that the film failed to tell a story that was sufficiently ‘compelling’ or ‘gripping.’”

The release of Latter Days in Madstone Theaters outside of Salt Lake City, however, are still scheduled.

“I find it quite sad that any conservative group would attempt to take such a choice away from the people of Salt Lake City,” says Cox. “I truly hope that we will be allowed to screen this movie and give people the opportunity to discuss the issues it raises and to judge its ‘artistic quality and integrity’ for themselves.”

For other news about Mormons and film, check out Ed Halter’s fascinating article “Missionary Positioning”, about the “unprecedented surge in features films made by Mormans, for Mormans, and set within the Morman World,” in this week’s Village Voice.