Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and director Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for a segment of music from their 2017 film Phantom Thread to be removed from Melania Trump’s controversial Amazon documentary.
The musician, who composed the score for the film starring Daniel Day-Lewis, alleged in a statement that the usage of the music was a breach of his composer agreement.
“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary,” Greenwood and Anderson’s representatives said in a joint statement obtained by Variety.
His attorneys claimed that while Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, the film’s distributor, Universal, “failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use, which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result, Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.”
The Independent has contacted Amazon MGM Studios and Universal for comment.
The film includes a long excerpt of “Barbara Rose”, a song the Radiohead guitarist composed for Anderson’s film.
The Brett Ratner-directed documentary, which followed the first lady in the 20 days leading up to her husband’s second inauguration, has earned $13.35m domestically after two weekends of release, exceeding box office projections thanks, in part, to organised groups of Republican women who have made up a large portion of the audience.
In the film, Melania meets with stylists, interior designers and political allies before she is seen hand-in-hand with her husband at his swearing-in ceremony.
Although the film has performed better than expected, it is still unlikely to recoup the $40m Amazon MGM paid for it. Amazon reportedly spent an additional $35m to market the film. It is believed to have cost more than just about any documentary in history.
The film’s price tag has prompted industry speculation that Amazon made the purchase to get close to US president Donald Trump.
The project marked the return of Rush Hour director Ratner, who moved to Israel following multiple sexual misconduct allegations in 2017. He has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crimes.
The film has been critically panned across the board, receiving a one-star review fromThe Independent’s Nick Hilton, who wrote: “Perhaps Melania is merely a piece of post-modern post-entertainment. After all, it is transparently not a documentary.”
Hilton continues: “Melania spends most scenes playing a staged version of herself, and shots of the first lady are composed with all the deliberateness Ratner brought to his work on X-Men: The Last Stand. This is somewhere between reality TV and pure fiction.”
In recent years, Greenwood has been a more active film composer than rock musician, writing or contributing to the scores for 12 films, including One Battle After Another, There Will Be Blood and Liquorice Pizza.
Phantom Thread received six Oscar nominations, including best original score.
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