“There is no grain of truth to this story” – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Neil Marshall has provided Deadline with a statement he made today, refuting and refuting the alleged reports there that he was involved in trying to call out NBC Universal Vice President Ron Meyer on behalf of the fiancée, Charlotte Kirk, about whom the executive reported had consensual affair with eight years ago.

You can read Marshall’s statement below:

I am a filmmaker, lucky enough to have moderate success and now working for almost 20 years. And one of my friends, anyone who has worked closely with me, anyone who knows me personally, and not just like any other name in a headline, will know that what is being said about me is a load of old bollocks .

In case it does not make clear, the allegations concerning me, Ron Meyer and NBC / Universal are nothing but lies based on falsehoods. There is no grain of truth to this story, so I encourage you, do not just look at a headline and take it as gospel. Some websites believe they can publish some nasty trash that is given to them with impunity. Such provocative nonsense does not save my time, if you will. The problem is, those lies are there now, and my career and reputation have already been irreparably damaged by them.

Too long ago, a tight-knit group of morally corrupt dinosaurs ruled the rose here in Hollywood, their extinction date was long overdue. Thanks to the #metoo movement, and every dismissal and revelation it has brought, things are changing for the better. What we need now is more women in leadership over studios, and the absolute abolition of the horrific casting couch culture (which has been transformed into sexual predation) which is a long accepted part of the business.

What we have here is a witch hunt, simple and straightforward, started by excessive men in positions of power, helped by friends of equal status and lack of ethics, driven by clickbait headers as we have seen these past few days, and carried out against the woman who ‘ t I love, my fiancé Charlotte Kirk. I’m just collateral damage, thrown to the wolves by using some trumped up malicious accusations as a smokescreen to disperse the focus of the real villains here. Charlotte has had the teeth to stand up to her opponents and not give herself up for submission, and I will not either.

Yesterday a report was published in TheWrap said Marshall and filmmaker Joshua Newton are apparently trying to blackmail Meyer, demanding money from the executive in exchange for keeping his affair with Kirk secret. Meyer stepped down from his 25-year position at NBCU on Tuesday, and made a joint announcement with conglomerate CEO Jeff Shell that his actions were inconsistent with the company’s value policy. Meyer further stated that he had a consensual affair with a woman he “made an arrangement, under threat, with … who had made false accusations against me … I made this revelation because other parties l learned of the scheme and have continually tried to extort me to pay their money or else they intended to falsely implicate NBCUniversal, which had nothing to do with this case and to publish false accusations about me. “

Following the news on Tuesday, reports were confirmed the woman Meyer had the affair with as British actress Charlotte Kirk, the same woman who was at the center of an affair with former Warner Bros. boss Kevin Tsujihara; a scandal that led to his departure from the company after allegations were made that he purchased parts for them in the studio’s films Ocean’s 8 en How to be single. Likewise, Meyer, knowing both Kirk and Tsujihara, was trying to form a settlement between those two parties, which, however, backfired in the face of the NBCU executive.

Earlier today, Marshall and Kirk pulled out of a virtual Q&A at the Fantasia festival in Canada where their period horror film The settlement makes its world premiere. Hellboy en The Descent filmmaker Marshall directed and co-wrote the horror film, which Kirk co-wrote, executive produced and starred in.