PR framing highlights a collaborative, experimental return to Leicester, using giant monsters as a surreal backdrop to explore love and diversity in one of the UK's most multicultural cities.
Insiders whisper that Kaye’s history of public feuds with studios and stars like Edward Norton makes this low-budget, university-backed project a safe harbor for his volatile creative process.
Kaye spent ~$100,000 on trade ads attacking New Line/Norton after 'American History X' disputes; he sued for $200 million (dismissed 2000); new short 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' shoots Friday in Leicester.
Kaye is trading Hollywood blockbuster battles for giant street monsters in Leicester, proving his chaos travels well even when the budget doesn't.
Tony Kaye, the British director known as much for his cinematic vision as for his explosive public feuds, is returning to his roots in Leicester to shoot a five-minute short film titled "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" The project, which blends documentary realism with drama, utilizes the city’s "Leicester Monsters"—giant sculptures installed by Designs in Air in downtown public spaces—as its primary backdrop. Kaye, who launched his career with the 1998 Oscar-nominated "American History X," is producing this new venture alongside Hiu Man Chan, a film entrepreneur and academic at De Montfort University.
The collaboration aims to pair Kaye with up-and-coming talent from the university and the local creative scene, marking a deliberate shift away from the high-stakes studio environments that defined his earlier career. The narrative premise is deceptively simple, asking whether people can bridge their differences to find love, a theme Kaye connects to a commercial he directed forty years ago featuring a dog, cat, and mouse kissing over a coal fire.
"Perhaps the universe is the real coal fire, and we are all just animals gathered around it, trying to work out how to love one another," Kaye said in a statement. He described the central question as "as simple as it is impossible: how can we all get along, forever?" The shoot, commencing this Friday, will rely on chance encounters and real human interactions, leveraging Leicester’s reputation as one of the UK’s most diverse cities to explore the tension between individual freedom and communal commitment.
For tea-rex, the drama lies in Kaye’s history. The director’s time on "American History X" was famously contentious, resulting in a public rift with star Edward Norton and New Line Cinema. Kaye spent approximately $100,000 on trade advertisements attacking the studio and Norton over the final cut, a dispute that led to a $200 million lawsuit against the guild and studio, ultimately dismissed in 2000.
He even attempted to change his credit to "Humpty Dumpty," a request the Directors Guild of America denied. His recent documentary, "Humpty Dumpty X," revisits this saga using camcorder footage from the dispute, including phone calls with executives, and premiered at the Tribeca Festival this year. This new short film appears to be a quieter, albeit still unconventional, chapter in Kaye’s long-running saga with Hollywood.
Production details reveal an experimental approach, with Louis Lingjaerde, known for "Vipers," serving as cinematographer. The film is part of a broader cultural initiative by BID Leicester to draw visitors into the city center using the oversized creatures. Hiu Man Chan, the producer, emphasized her passion for storytelling focused on love and her desire to "put the city of Leicester in motion" through this collaboration. By choosing a low-budget, community-integrated format, Kaye is sidestepping the studio machinery that once drove him to the brink, opting instead to let the giant monsters and the city’s diverse population do the heavy lifting for his latest artistic statement.
