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Mickey Rourke Film Will Be A Public Insult to Wales
....and the the many millions of Americans who claim Welsh descent. I refer of course to the following:-
Film inspired by Gareth Thomas relocated to Ireland as the US ‘won’t get Wales’
In my opinion the film will be trash as a consequence. This is a Welsh story which took place in Wales involving Welsh characters. Now of course everyone will be carrying shillaleghs and drinking Guiness and the whole thing will be turned into a pantomime farce. Who knows...perhaps there will be a few leprechauns thrown in as well for good measure? Personally I will be boycotting this travesty and I hope it flops
If you are reading this and you are similarly outraged please go to https://www.facebook.com/AmeriCymru?ref=hl and add your voice to the growing chorus of protest against this decision. The relevant post is pinned to the top of the feed......diolch 
Also please consider emailing Cargo Entertainment ( the production company ) to tell them what you think of them. This is their email address:- info@cargoentertainment.com
If you are on Twitter you can also tweet one of the Producers here @CostiganMichael
RE: 'STOLEN THUNDER'
To whom it may concern
Your claim that American cinema audiences will not 'get Wales' is every bit as absurd as it is insulting. Let's deal with the absurdity first:-
1. The President of the USA recently visited Wales for a NATO summit. He had no trouble finding it. Perhaps he had foreknowledge of its existence or maybe he used a map? Either way I contend that few people in the US, in the post Torchwood era, do not know what Wales is or where it is. Your claim to the contrary is both patronising and grossly insulting to American film audiences.
2. You are currently producing another movie called 'The Price'. I hope you won't object if I quote from the synopsis on this page:- http://www.cargoentertainment.com/the-price/
"Clare and her 5-year-old son Finn are in hiding in rural FRANCE after an ugly custody dispute with his father Liam. She wakes in the middle of the night to find Jonas, one of Liam’s cronies, kidnapping Finn. She tracks Liam down to BERLIN ....."
I don't know whether this movie will be produced on location in France and Germany but I note that you have not changed the setting to Dublin in order to avoid confusion. Wales is, if anything, a slightly less exotic venue than either of these two.
3. Assuming for a moment that you were correct and that US movie audiences do not 'get Wales' would this not make the film all the more interesting? What makes you think that people constantly want more of the same?
And so to the insult:-
1. This is a Welsh story which took place in Wales involving real Welsh people. Indeed Gareth Thomas is something of a sporting and cultural icon. Therefore, in my opinion, your use of his life story without reference either to him or Wales is an act of blatant cultural 'appropriation'. Perhaps appropriation is too mild a term?
2. It has been suggested that this film will help members of the gay community by highlighting the pain that they go through when 'coming out'. I sincerely hope it does. But I doubt that is your true goal. If so, It seems o dd that you would choose to dilute the impact of the movie by removing its true protagonist. It is also strange that you would seek to better the lot of one minority by viciously insulting another. The Welsh are a minority in the UK and some would claim that they are an oppressed minority also.
Please be aware that if you deign to respond, I may publicly reproduce all, or parts, of your reply.
Ceri Shaw
COMMENTS FROM THE OLD AMERICYMRU SITE
Hi Christopher
Many thanks for posting and of course you are entirely correct vis a vis the announcement in the Telegraph BUT if you go to this page you will plainly see that 'Irish Thunder' is still listed as a pre-production project:- http://www.cargoentertainment.com/irish-thunder/
SO...yes the Gareth Thomas movie has been cancelled BUT at the moment the massively insulting (imho ) 'replacement' project is still due to go ahead. No one would be happier than me to learn that the whole thing has been shelved BUT there is little indication of that on the Cargo Entertainment website.
What appears to be the case is that the Gareth Thomas biopic has been cancelled and a rather trashy exploitation flic has been substituted for it.
Christopher Benson April 19, 2015 at 2:35am
It tuns out that this is a false alarm. Yes it was a slight against Wales, but it is going no further. There will be no movie (or at least not THAT one). The following extract is from an article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph exactly two months ago on 18 February 2015. It is an interview with Gareth Thomas by Jasper Rees. I draw your attention to the last four words of the first paragraph below:
And yet there is no getting away from his story. The film world is naturally keen to get in on the act, and the first person to pop up was Mickey Rourke who, though 20 years Thomas’s senior, seemed eager to take the lead himself. The project fell through.
“It was like a car crash,” he says. Thomas is keen not to dwell on it, although he’s now working on a new film with another writer.
Jasper Rees, in the Culture Section of the Daily Telegraph, 19 February 2015.
The full Daily Telegraph article is here. My extract quoted above is around the 18th or 19th paragraph. On most browsers you can type Ctrl-F then rourke to find it). So the slight against Wales was small - very small by the usual historical distortions that emanate from Hollywood - just a slight slight against Wales, if you will.
But who is going to tell Fiona Audley of the Irish Post (Twitter @fifiaudley) that her 13 April 2015 is "all for naught"?
The Wikipedia article on Gareth Thomas has been reporting since 21 February 2015 that the Rourke film project was cancelled, and the Daily Telegraph reported it on 19 February.
It is obvious from the February 2015 article that the "coming out" aspect of the Gareth Thomas story was made into a play by the National Theatre Wales called "Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage" (Cymraeg). It was set to open that night for a scheduled 17 day run in Cardiff before Touring Wales and England that will end 121 days later near the end of June after a 32 day run in London.
There are no plans to take the Gareth Thomas play to Southern California - or Ireland for that matter.
Chris Benson.
gaabi April 19, 2015 at 10:26am
Only the Gareth Thomas part of the film is cancelled, Rourke IS still making a film about a gay rugby player but he'll now be a made-up Irish guy instead - THAT is the problem. If you look at the Cargo Entertainment page Ceri cited above, you'll see it, production is supposed to start in February 2016.
Christopher Benson April 20, 2015 at 1:02am
Yes Gaabi and Ceri, I agree that this is an affront to a respectable and respected Welshman, our national sport, and even to honesty. It is yet another example of Hollywood's litany of historical distortions, but most are more prominent than this one will be. The good news is that nobody goes to see movies that Cargo Entertainment are involved in.
As a fellow "Left Coast" resident of the States, I know that this kind of distortion of the facts is unnecessary and the supposed logic behind it does not reflect the average American.
This Hollywood aversion to the truth is so pervasive that I would almost feel insulted if the Welsh were not their occasional target like everyone else.
Now I find THIS insulting to the Welsh (at the 1:00 minute mark). It aired on HBO in North America on Sunday July 20, 2014.
As I posted to an American forum at the time:
The Welshman insulted at the 1:00 minute mark is twenty year old Rhys Jones from Pontypridd, Wales. He has cerebral palsy and he can run faster than you.
gaabi April 22, 2015 at 11:23pm
Good for you, Christopher!
And this especially made me happy: "...nobody goes to see movies that Cargo Entertainment are involved in." Yes, I recall their many nominations and box office boffo... wait, no..
The Chicago Tafia Welsh Society April 19, 2015 at 12:13am
It's a rather pathetic reason and one that doesn't make sense on any level. Trying to contact the producers and actors in the film, it's still in preproduction so there is a chance changes could be made.
Ceri Shaw April 19, 2015 at 10:23am
Gwych....will be doing likewise
Ceri Shaw April 18, 2015 at 11:20am
Looking forward to Mickey's next film 'Owain Seamus Glyndwr - The Great Irish Freedom Fighter'
Ceri Shaw April 17, 2015 at 6:25pm
I just read that the movie will be called 'Irish Thunder' ??????? Words fail me!
gaabi April 22, 2015 at 11:24pm
Poster coming soon....
