First Lady Melania Trump’s longtime senior advisor and Melania producer Marc Beckman fired back at director Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood after they claimed the inclusion of music from their work Phantom Thread in Mrs. Trump’s hit film was done in “breach of composer agreement.”
“It’s a blatant lie,” Beckman told Breitbart News by phone on Monday. “We have a legal right and permission to use every song and piece of music in the film. We have the legal rights to use it. We’ve done everything the right way. We followed protocol. We respect artists. We compensated everyone for their music.”
Thomas and Greenwood released a statement that was published by Variety on Monday, in which the pair say:
It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the ‘Melania‘ documentary. While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.
Beckman says their claims are patently false.
“We have legally binding, fully executed contracts in place to use every song in Melania,” Beckman said, adding “This is just ridiculous.”
Variety didn’t reach out to Mrs. Trump or her camp, Beckman said, adding that no news outlet that ran with the story contacted him or their team for comment.
“It’s unfortunate that none of them contacted anyone in our camp to see if their reporting was factually correct,” Beckman said. “It’s time for journalists to report the news as opposed to making it up. I have a tremendous amount of respect for journalism and its role in American society but if it continues to head in this direction, it will lose its impact and importance in our democracy.”
“If these journalists continue to publish one-sided pieces, they will lose the trust of the American people.”
Beckman, was, however, excited to share news that Melania continues to perform well at the box office.
“We’re very pleased with the film’s performance in its second weekend in theaters,” he said. “We crossed $13 million in sales and we hit the predicted benchmark for our sales projections for Super Bowl weekend almost exactly with what we predicted.”
Watch: How Melania Took Control of the Story. And Won.
Beckman added: “Theaters continue to remain full. Audiences continue to applaud at the end of the film. We’re very happy with where we’re at.”
Indeed, Melania grossed $2.37 million in North American theaters in its second weekend, according to estimates shared Sunday by Amazon MGM Studios.
Melania continues to boast a remarkable 99 percent FRESH audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Jerome Hudson is Breitbart News Entertainment Editor and author of the book 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know About Trump. Order your copy today. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter and instagram@jeromeehudson
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