Xbox Live Censorship Shocks Schlock Director

James Gunn (directed Slither in 2006 and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed in 2004) is shocked and upset at the fact that Microsoft wouldn't let his Humanzee project (see the trailer below) out into Xbox Live without cutting it all up and making it not quite the "most balls-out, fucked up thing I’ve ever shot".

Says Gunn, of his 'painful Xbox experience': "Warner Bros was a bastion of creative freedom on SCOOBY DOO 2 in comparison. I’m not exaggerating or being facetious. Microsoft/XBox was by far the most dreadful, non-talent friendly company I’ve ever worked for. And if you think I had it bad, some of the other directors (most specifically, SAW director James Wan, who just happens to be one of my favorite people in the world) had it even worse."

(Apparently all film names MUST BE IN UPPER CASE.)

We're finding it hard to keep our stitches together with what must be one of the statements of the year so far... "creative freedom on SCOOBY DOO 2". Nice one James... seriously.

Gunn is really very miffed indeed - and he makes a few points that are worth considering, "People on XBox are playing Grand Theft Auto 4, getting blowjobs from hookers and shooting them in the heads afterwards! The top downloaded content on XBox is South Park!

"But Microsoft wouldn’t let us get close to the extremity of that material, so I don’t know how in the world they planned to create their own successful original content.

"People didn’t want to see our shows, which were barely a half-step removed from something you’d see on the Disney Channel. It’s a shame. I really think XBox could have been their own Network, as well as a gaming console, DVR, and way to buy movies.

"I saw them as the future. But because of the small-mindedness of the Microsoft executives, who preemptively censored a lot of our scenes for fear of freaking out stockholders, they crushed the potential for something that would have kept them relevant for a long time to come. It seems, instead, the visionaries have landed at other companies."

Ouch. He then goes on to undermine much of his own purity-of-my-art argument by stating, "I also realize this means I was lying in the above G4 interview. And I was, a little."

He's referring to an interview about his other attempt at Xbox Live output with, SPARKY & MIKAELA (see that upper case convention?). During that interview he says, "I'm the owner of Sparky and Mikaela, so it's much different, so it's much different than if we went in and made these things for a studio in which we'd get maybe 1% of DVD and TV sales and that's it."

Anyway, make your own mind about about Humanzee below.



Read the whole painful experience here.