Remember Tobe Hooper’s DJINN? No easy task, considering it’s been been about nine months since we last heard about it. And this might be the last time we hear about it again for quite a while. The horror film, set in Abu Dhabi, was funded by Image Nation, the film production arm of massive Abu Dhabi Media – but now that same studio is apparently getting heat to bury it from the United Arab Emirates’ royal family, which didn’t take kindly to the film after seeing it.
Italian website Movie Sushi got the scoop. Here’s a bit of what they had to say (with info obtained from a source within DJINN’s production) – please forgive the rough translation: “…it seems, in fact, that some prominent member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi has seen the movie and have it judged “unfit to provide an accurate image of the UAE” politically subversive enough to judge [Image Nation honcho Mohammed Al] Mubarak and force (probably with a generous donation) to block the distribution of Djinn.
The site goes on to say that there have been positive test screenings of the film in London, prompting a couple of distributors to make offers on it, but the Image Nation isn’t having it. The main complaint, apparently, is that DJINN “addresses a type of witchcraft that is not recognized with the beliefs of the nation .”
Dear royal family: As a great tagline once said, it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie…
This is some interesting drama. Now that the story is out, perhaps we’ll get to see DJINN sometime in the future; would be a shame for it to go down as just a piece of trivia…
DJINN actress Razane Jammal