Even fun can quickly turn bitterly serious. Leonardo DiCaprio (“Blood Diamond”) and Tobey Maguire (“Ride With The Devil”) also found out about this. With some other friends (including Kevin Connolly, Jeremy Sisto and Amber Benson), the friendly duo shot the 1995 indie film “Don’s Plum”. It’s all about a group of friends who meet at their local bar and always have to bring a young woman with them. The film describes one of these meetings.
During a running time of almost 90 minutes, conversations are exclusively about love and sex – often in a rather rough way and well below the belt. The fact that the film has largely fallen into oblivion today and has not been able to acquire cult status over the years is because Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire did everything they could to ensure that Don’s Plum was never released. Why? The duo claimed that the film was never intended to be released…
… and was proven right in court. While director RD Robb argued that DiCaprio and Maguire were paid ($575 a day) for their work on Don’s Plum so they knew the filmmakers wanted to monetize the shoot, DiCaprio and Maguire explained that at the time it was all about practicing acting methods. They referred to improvisation and the dynamics of long monologues and dialogue sequences. The end of the song: There is a strict ban on performances in the US and Canada, but ‘Don’s Plum’ can be shown in Europe (and can be ordered via Amazon, for example).
Could Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire be changed again?
Seven years ago, author and producer Dale Wheatley made another attempt to bring ‘Don’s Plum’ closer to the general public. As the operator of the website FreeDonsPlum.com he published the film through Vimeo. His point of view: If no money can be made from the film, you can simply make it available online for free. So far it’s going well.
However, the joy didn’t last long, because when Leonardo DiCaprio got wind of it, he immediately had the video blocked. Wheatley then decided to take action again against the fact that he was not allowed to publish his own work on a global video platform – but so far without success. Instead, he now simply emails the film to interested parties (via his website). Anyone wanting to see ‘Don’s Plum’ can go this route or come to Europe, where the film has just been released on DVD and can sometimes be found in junk boxes.