Weinstein Company: Tarantino Can ‘Speak for Himself’

Harvey Weinstein’s studio has broken its silence over filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s anti-police statements, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Amid a growing nationwide boycott of Tarantino’s upcoming film, a spokesperson for The Weinstein Company told THR on Tuesday the studio would not speak for Tarantino, adding he can “speak for himself,” in regards to the Oscar-winning director’s description of police officers as “murderers.”

Addressing an anti-police rally in New York nearly two weeks ago, Tarantino stood before a sign that read “Stop Police Terror.” He then said, “When I see murders, I do not stand by… I have to call a murder a murder, and I have to call the murderers the murderers.”

The comments were made just days after Randolph Holder, a 33 year-old off-duty police officer, was murdered in East Harlem while pursuing an armed suspect.

Tarantino’s comments initiated a boycott of his highly anticipated upcoming western The Hateful Eight by nationwide law enforcement agencies.

Amid fears the boycott will hurt the film financially, Hateful Eight’s distributor spoke exclusively to THR Tuesday, breaking weeks of silence.

While Tarantino has refused to apologize, despite a condemnation of his comments by his own father, TWC said in a press release:

The Weinstein Co. has a longstanding relationship and friendship with Quentin and has a tremendous amount of respect for him as a filmmaker… We don’t speak for Quentin, he can and should be allowed to speak for himself.

Sources have been telling THR that company board members are concerned over the boycott, which has now grown to more than 333,000 officers, and have been pressuring Harvey Weinstein to take action.

A defiant Tarantino told The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, “I’m not taking back what I said. What I said was the truth.”

Tarantino added:

What they’re doing is pretty obvious. Instead of dealing with the incidents of police brutality that those people were bringing up, instead of examining the problem of police brutality in this country, better they single me out… their message is very clear. It’s to shut me down. It’s to discredit me. It is to intimidate me. It is to shut my mouth, and even more important than that, it is to send a message out to any other prominent person that might feel the need to join that side of the argument.

Tarantino concluded by blaming “police mouthpieces” for the controversy, adding, “I’m not a cop hater.”