The reason behind the fans' ire is simple. As written by Ernie Cline in a script that was widely admired in Hollywood, the motivation for the four young fans' need to see The Phantom Menace before it came to theaters was that one of the guys was dying of cancer. After acquiring the film, the Weinstein Company altered the film to remove all references to cancer. Fans, who had seen up to 40 minutes of the original film in rough cut versions shown at various Star Wars gatherings, went apoplectic accusing the Weinsteins of taking the "heart" out of the film and turning it into a pointless teen comedy.
The disgruntled fans are attempting to mount a bicoastal attack on the Weinsteins' Superhero Movie, which they dubbed "another unfunny parody crapfest like Scary Movie, Epic Movie, etc." Realizing that the Weinsteins have millions more invested in Superhero Movie than they do in Fanboys, the Star Wars partisans have continued to mount their Internet campaign against Superhero Movie. Today it appeared that the threat of the boycott has had some effect on the Weinstein Company, which announced that it will make both the original and the cancer-free versions of the film available on DVD and will also "make a very strong attempt to make both films available theatrically as well."
However the Fanboys movie, which features a great young cast including Kristen Bell, Seth Rogen, Dan Fogler, and Jay Baruchel, still remains in limbo and has no release date for either a theatrical or a DVD version, and the stopdarthweinstein.com crowd isn't buying the Weinstein Company's latest promises as evidenced by its response to the latest development: "There was never any doubt that you (Harvey Weinstein) would release both versions of the movie on DVD, probably months apart, so as to leech as much money from Star Wars fans as possible. Our boycott will continue until the Weinstein Co. announces that they are returning control of Fanboys to the Star Wars fans who made it, releasing the original version in theaters and doing away with their anti-fan version of the film altogether."
