Slender Man will finally arrive in UK cinemas next week, having been pushed back from a May release date. It’s fair to say the film, directed by Sylvain White – who secured the involvment of the spooky character’s creator, Victor Surge – has had its fair share of problems.
Along with the aforementioned release date shift, a huge public bust-up between the producers of the film and Sony bled online in early June, with the studio seeking a smaller debut for it. The producers then fought back against this dialling down, demanding a larger marketing strategy and eventually using a clause in their contract to shop the film around to other outlets.
Slender Man (as in, the long gentleman at the centre of many a creepy internet tale) has also been cited in a real life crime, and the father of one of the victims involved in that attack was extremely unhappy about the character being launched for mass public entertainment.
Having now been released stateside to fairly poor reviews – it’s sitting at 12% on Rotten Tomatoes currently – further behind the scenes problems have now become clear. Bloody Disgusting reports that the final film is far from complete. Despite always being eyed for a PG-13 rating, the screenplay was overhauled as production got underway, and ultimately several big scenes were stripped away just before the film hit cinemas, including many from the first trailer. As such, the film has ended up bring nothing like the one anyone intended it to be, and however you feel about the story, the film, or the people behind it, that’s a real shame.
Slender Man stars Javiet Botet, Jaz Sinclair, Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Annalise Basso and Kevin Chapman, and will be released on 24th August.