Actors Bash Screener Ban

An all-star cast is onboard for Hollywood's latest thriller. But this one's unspooling behind the scenes.

Just days after name-brand directors like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Altman signed an open letter blasting the MPAA's controversial decision to ban screeners, a group of A-list stars, including Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, is chiming in with their opposition.

Other thespians joining the fray include Penn's wife, Robin Wright Penn, along with a collection of former Oscar winners (Jodie Foster, Holly Hunter, Ellen Burstyn, Hilary Swank, Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek) and nominees (Nick Nolte, Willem Dafoe), indie favorites (Steve Buscemi, Don Cheadle) and up-and-comers (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Selma Blair), according to Daily Variety.

The actors are being mobilized by the Independent Features Project, a non-profit organization representing the indie film community that says the ban hurts the studios' art-house divisions who rely on screeners to get their films out to Academy Award voters and will do nothing to accomplish the MPAA's stated goal of stopping piracy.

"This last-minute policy change will seriously diminish the diversity and quality of independent films immediately, and the mainstream film industry in the long run," says Michelle Byrd, executive director of IFP/New York, in a statement on the group's Website.

"Oscar consideration is a primary motivating factor behind the funding of riskier films, those of more serious content, films with ambitious narrative aspirations. Lacking Oscar potential these films will not be made.

"Specialized divisions and the actors and directors whose careers are often made by their releases become even more vulnerable than they already are in today's tight market. Yet again, the public is the ultimate loser because specialized films are the more artistically daring and challenging fare."

Several of the actors could directly be impacted by the ban come Oscar time. Penn and Watts, for instance, costar in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's buzz-worthy 21 Grams for Universal-based Focus Features. And Hunter plays a key role in Fox Searchlight's Thirteen. Both those films could be squeezed out of awards' contention with the new ban.

IFP also agrees with the point raised last week by filmmakers, who asserted there's no proven link between screeners and the burgeoning problem of piracy. Instead, the group argues, it's in-theater taping abroad, particularly in Asia, that is the main culprit in the Industry's annual losses of $3 billion a year due to illegal copying and selling.

IFP suggests watermarking VHS and DVD screeners sent out to Oscar voters, making the videos traceable should they somehow find their way onto the black market.

The actors' letter is expected to be published in the coming days. Meanwhile, officers of the actors union, the Screen Actors Guild, are confabbing this weekend and will release an official statement on the ban next week.

SAG president Melissa Gilbert is already on record as being vehemently opposed to the edict. "That the voting community of Hollywood is the community they're accusing of doing this is mind-boggling," Gilbert tells Variety. "It's ridiculous. It's totally unfair, and I would certainly urge the MPAA to reconsider."

Meanwhile, screenwriters are speaking out against the ban.

"Screeners have become an important part of the way small, well-written films find their audience," Writers Guild of America West president Victoria Riskin says in a statement. "To place a gag order on screeners is to tilt the playing field from small films to large. As writers deeply concerned with preservation and nurturing of the independent voice, we urge the MPAA to reconsider and do the fair and right thing for all artists."

The WGA says if it weren't for screeners, such Oscar-winning scribes as John Irving (The Cider House Rules), Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) and Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) would never have gotten the recognition they ultimately received from Academy voters.

And in case you were wondering how Hollywood heavyweights like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas stand on the ban, both opted not to sign the director's petition--Spielberg because of his connection to DreamWorks and Lucas because he's pretty much always objected to screeners.

Despite the outcry from various creative types, the MPAA says it "welcomes the exchange of thoughts and ideas on the critical issue of combating piracy," but it refuses to lift the ban.