DIRECTOR OF ROBIN WILLIAMS FILM WISHES IT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER

Tristram Shapeero, who directed Robin Williams in the upcoming A Merry Friggin’ Christmas, says that he now wishes that he had had the resources to improve certain aspects of the film — so that it could better have done justice to Williams’s career. In an interview with the New York Times, Shapeero, who is making his feature film debut as a director with Christmas (after directing several British and U.S. TV shows, including Community) indicated that he is pleased with the overall spirit of the movie but wishes he had been able to create, in the words of the Times, "a more ceremonious send-off for Williams. "I’m glad that it turned out the way that it did," Shapeero said, "but I wish, especially as the circumstances have dictated, that I had fought harder for the film," which was produced on a $6-million budget and could have used more resources to polish some of the scenes. Tom Rice, a producer at Sycamore Pictures, which financed the movie, acknowledged that "we underwrote this movie based solely on Robin Williams and Christmas," told the Times: "The burden on the marketing is to be very sensitive," he said, and "to make sure we’re honoring him and not trying to capitalize on a tragedy." He said that the advertising and promotion will not mention that Christmas was one of Williams’s last films.