Pharrell‘s animated Lego biopic Piece By Piece is finally out in the world, at least to one film festival audience.
The movie, directed by 20 Feet From Stardom filmmaker Morgan Neville, premiered on Friday (August 30) at the Telluride Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado.
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“I’m so excited to be at a festival that doesn’t show many animated movies, but they chose mine,” Pharrell told Variety.
At the screening, Neville described the film as an “ode to the power of magical thinking.”
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The movie got a positive notice from Deadline(“it brings a freshness and originality to a docu format that makes it feel all new again”), but was dinged for “typical hagiographic evasiveness” by The Hollywood Reporter, though the publication also called the film “inventive.”
IndieWirenoted that Pharrell’s Neptunes production partner Chad Hugo appears in the film, but is “mostly relegated to the background” as “comic relief.”
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Hugo and Pharrell have been having some issues outside of the silver screen recently, with the former filing with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board this past spring, accusing his longtime friend and co-producer of committing fraud by attempting to register trademarks for the Neptunes name without his name on it.
“Throughout their over thirty year history, [Hugo] and Williams agreed to, and in fact, have divided all assets,” the documents read. “By ignoring and excluding [Hugo] from the any and all applications filed by applicant for the mark ‘The Neptunes,’ applicant has committed fraud in securing the trademarks and acted in bad faith.”
A representative for the “Happy” hitmaker made a statement to Billboard at the time, saying: “Pharrell is surprised by this. We have reached out on multiple occasions to share in the ownership and administration of the trademark and will continue to make that offer. The goal here was to make sure a third party doesn’t get a hold of the trademark and to guarantee Chad and Pharrell share in ownership and administration.”
Hugo’s lawyer, on the other hand, felt that was a lie.
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“If Pharrell’s intent was to include Chad in the filing, he should have registered it in the name of their jointly owned company Neptunes, LLC and not in his own name,” he said. “This was a land grab in a long simmering dispute that has yet to be resolved.”
As of earlier this month, Hugo and Williams were engaged in negotiations towards a settlement.
