The 2017 movie banned from cinemas because it didn’t star Morgan Freeman
For the last decade or so, about half of the movies Morgan Freeman has made haven’t seen the inside of a cinema, but one film that he had nothing to do with suffered an identical fate because he wasn’t in it.
The veteran has always been honest in admitting that the easiest way to convince him to sign on for a picture is to dangle a sizeable paycheque in front of him, which goes a long way to explaining why he’s made such a habit of appearing in an onslaught of straight-to-video dreck in recent years.
Remember his supporting roles in The Poison Rose, Vanquish, 57 Seconds, In Our Blood, and Gunner? Of course you don’t, because you don’t know anybody who saw them, and they’ve all been released since 2019. He does continue to pick up the odd big-screen gig, but they’re growing fewer and further between.
Obviously, you can cut Freeman a little slack, since he’s almost 90, he’s been working as a professional actor for over 60 years, and his Academy Award-winning career has seen him more than hold his own in a slew of box office bonanzas, masterpieces, cult favourites, and ironclad classics, but one film decided to take an altogether ballsier route to capitalising on his iconic status.
While you couldn’t rule him out entirely from appearing in an Uzbekistani movie, although it seems more like the sort of thing a Nicolas Cage or a John Cusack would end up doing, the 2017 action thriller Daydi, which starred Mirolim Quilchev as a cop facing off against a band of rogue assassins who pose a threat to national security, decided to plonk Freeman’s image in the middle of its poster for no discernible reason.
Was he briefly attached to the project at any point? He was not. Has he ever been in an Uzbek production? No, he has not. Did he have anything to do with the film whatsoever? Again, he didn’t. Had he worked with any of its actors, filmmakers, or production company, Timur Films, in any capacity in the past? Absolutely not.
And yet, for reasons that make less sense the more you think about it, somebody thought it would be a good idea to pluck a promo image of the star from Last Knights, the 2015 period piece he shot opposite Clive Owen in a would-be epic hailing from a Japanese director and a Canadian screenwriter that was filmed in the Czech Republic, which is roughly 2,500 miles away from Uzbekistan.
When the nation’s licensing board rightfully questioned why Daydi would feature Freeman so prominently on its poster when he wasn’t involved in any way, shape, or form, the genre flick was accused of false and misleading advertising and a potential breach of customer rights on behalf of anyone who would have paid to see it, based on the presence of an actor who wasn’t part of the cast.
It was a bold tactic, you’ve got to give them that, but to the shock of nobody, it turned out that you can’t try to sell a movie on Morgan Freeman when your movie doesn’t have Morgan Freeman.
