Bad Buzz for Gere's 'Autumn'

Aug. 10, 2000 -- Will Autumn in New York be the Thanksgiving turkey that arrived early?

Ever since MGM canceled advance screenings of the film for critics — a sign you’ve got a real Battlefield Earth-style clunker on the way — buzz about the Richard Gere-Winona Ryder romance has been less than glowing.

The studio claims it isn’t screening Autumn because it doesn’t want to give away the plot’s surprise twist, but the film’s cast and crew are fuming about the decision. Co-star Gere complained to USA Today, “Winona and I are very proud of this film and disagree with the decision not to preview it.”

Maybe Gere’s too close to the movie to see the truth. Foreign critics who’ve already watched the film confirm the worst: It’s Bad with a capital B. One journalist who attended the international junket told the New York Post, “The movie is a real turkey. It’s so bad that people were laughing during dramatic sequences.”

Where’s the Romance?Autumn tells the story of a May-to-December romance between Gere and Ryder — which develops a tear-jerking twist … but we won’t spoil things.

And the romance part may be the problem; sources on the set have claimed that there’s absolutely no chemistry between the film’s stars. One crew member tells the Post that Autumn’s worst moment is a scene in which Gere reads “horrifically bad” poetry to Ryder in bed.

Fans who are used to Gere’s cheesiness (Pretty Woman wasn’t exactly Shakespearean in tone), though, will probably be fine with a fair amount of soapiness. But Winona’s no Julia Roberts, and aside from Girl, Interrupted, she’s struggled to find a part that fits her threshold hipster status.

The dark-eyed star apparently did only a minimal amount of interacting with the foreign press during a recent junket and shut down an interview when one journalist asked her about her ex-boyfriend Matt Damon.

Ryder is said to be keeping mum on her next film as well. Lost Souls (due out Oct. 13) has been surrounded by negative word-of-mouth and was originally supposed to come out more than a year ago.