“Phantom Thread” director Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood have asked for a segment of music from the 2017 film to be removed from the controversial “Melania” documentary. Greenwood wrote the score for “Phantom Thread.”
“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the ‘Melania‘ documentary,” the pair said in a statement, obtained by Variety from Greenwood’s rep. “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.”
However, “Melania” cost more than just about any documentary in history. Amazon MGM spent a staggering sum of money, acquiring the film and an accompanying straight-to-streaming docu-series for $40 million and then shelling out $35 million on the theatrical marketing spend. Those are unprecedented costs considering documentaries aren’t traditionally a driver of big box office dollars.
Over the past 25 years, Greenwood more active as a film composer than he has as a rock musician, writing or contributing to the scores for 12 films, including “One Battle After Another,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Inherent Vice” and “Liquorice Pizza,” among others.
– Variety

