The Master and Margarita - Stone Village Productions

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In the month of May 2010, Sergey Shilovsky, the grandson of Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, the third wife of Mikhail Bulgakov, announced that he had signed a contract to grant the film rights for The Master and Margarita to the American production company Stone Village Pictures.

Since many years already, Shilovsky claims to be the heir of the writer. It is because of his actions, for example, that the film of Yuri Kara from 1994 was only released in April 2011. Shilovsky had argued this by saying that he wanted to ensure that the screen adaptations of The Master and Margarita «are fully in line with the original, not like some interpretations of Bulgakov». In practice, however, it looks like it's rather the amount of the royalties he receives which «must be fully in line with his expectations». Anyway, the offer of Stone Village Pictures must have been in line with Shilovsky's expectations, since he said that, after having signed this contract, it would not be allowed, «in any country, to make another film adaptation of The Master and Margarita in the next ten years».

Scott Steindorff, the producer of Stone Village Productions, had planned to start the shootings in the fall of 2011. «It is a big budget movie and I have lined up financing so it will be a reality», Steindorff confirmed to us on June 8, 2011.

Many names of possible directors and actors have been mentioned, especially in the Russian press, but the only name which ever was confirmed was Caroline Thompson, who has made the script. Thompson had already made the scripts for The Addams Family, Edward Scissorhands and Black Beauty.

On August 21, 2011, Nikolai Novichkov, Minister of Culture in Perm (Russia), told to reporters that Stone Village Productions had offered to shoot the planned film adaptation of The Master and Margarita in Perm. The Americans needed to discuss the proposal further with Oleg Chirkunov, the Governor of the Perm Region. Stone Village Productions would have hoped to get a partial funding from the Perm regional budget.

In the Summer of 2014, Scott Steindorff had told us that, as a result of the strained political relations, he could no longer consider shooting in Russia. As a result, the shootings should take place in studios, for which he had to find new budgets.

Quite unexpectedly, the Russian news agency TASS announced on February 14, 2017, that the film rights for a Hollywood version of The Master and Margarita had been granted to Svetlana Migunova-Dali, co-owner of the Moscow production company Logos Film Company, and Grace Loh, who is heading of the production company New Crime Productions in Hollywood. When asked for comments, Scott Steindorff laconically replied: «This is a complete joke. No studio will touch this now.» . From other sources we heard, however, that Steindorff had not renewed his option, so the rights were available.

So it seems that, after Federico Fellini, Roman Polanski and Ray Manzarek, Scott Steindorff also has to forget about his plans to make a western movie version of The Master and Margarita. And that we must create a new page on this website on Svetlana Migunova-Dali and Grace Loh.



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