When iconic filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg need music for their films they turn to one person, composer John Williams.

From all of the “Star Wars” movies to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial,” Williams’ music is as memorable as the films themselves.

However, it seems the 5-time Oscar winner is scaling back on his work load.

According to reports, “Rogue One,” the first spinoff film from the “Star Wars” sage, will not have a Williams score.

This marks the first time a “Star Wars” films will not be composed by Williams, now 83 years old.

Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat will be on the project, which will be directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones.

Desalt recently won an Oscar for his original score of “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

Last week, DreamWorks announced that John Williams had backed out of Spielberg’s next film, “Bridges of Spies” due to a “minor health issue, now corrected.” Thomas Newman, who just finished the latest James Bond movie, “Spectre,” will be taking over.

In another first, “Spies” is the first time in three decades a Williams composition will be absent from a Spielberg film.

But don’t worry, there’s more Williams music on the way. He did compose the score for “Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens,” which opens in theaters December 18.

He’s also written scores for the upcoming “Jurassic World” and is attached for “Indiana Jones 5,” once more re-teaming him with Spielberg.

SEE ALSO: Disney showed off concept art for the 'Star Wars' spinoff to its shareholders

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NOW WATCH: The First 'Star Wars: Episode VII' Trailer Is Here!

From its striking reenactments to its shocking conclusion, HBO’s "The Jinx" has become our latest true-crime fix. But with the series over where do you go now to consume a juicy real life whodunit?

Coincidentally, the film that started the true-crime film genre just became available on Blu-ray Tuesday for the first time ever.

“The Thin Blue Line” (1988) is Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris’ masterpiece that reexamines the 1976 murder of a slain Texas police officer in which Randall Dale Adams was convicted and sentenced to death. Morris interviews most of the lawyers, investigators, and witnesses involved in the case in an attempt to prove that Adams was innocent of the crime. Morris also interviewed David Harris, who said he was in the car with Adams when the murder took place.

His testimony was one of the chief reasons Adams was convicted, but "The Thin Blue Line" suggests that it was actually Harris who was guilty.

And to top this incredible story, Morris added something that set his film apart from the talking heads in documentaries of the 1980s; he incorporated lush reenactments of the night in question accompanied by a stirring score from composer Philip Glass (he’s since done the music for four more Morris films) to create an immersive experience that elevates the story and makes you feel you're right there investigating what really happened. "The Jinx" incorporates similarly vivid reenactments. 

"The Jinx" and "The Thin Blue Line" both have shocking endings. In the former, the real-estate heir Robert Durst apparently confesses to killing his wife, his good friend, and his neighbor when he utters the phrase, "What the hell did I do? Killed them all of course."

At the end of "The Thin Blue Line," Harris admits to Morris it was he, not Adams, who killed the police officer.

Morris, who talked to Business Insider from Los Angeles last week, says he hasn't seen "The Jinx" yet, but moments he recounts from his experience making "The Thin Blue Line" are almost a carbon copy of what we see "The Jinx" director Andrew Jarecki go through while making his HBO documentary series. 

Like in the final episode of "The Jinx" where Jarecki is filled with anxiety preparing for the final interview with Durst, Morris told BI he also had his own issues when doing his final interview with Harris. Perhaps even worse than Jarecki's nerves, Morris' camera malfunctioned while interviewing Harris and he had to tape record their conversation instead of filming it.

“I thought it was a disaster at the time,” said Morris. “I remember I came home from doing the interview with the tape recorder and I started crying.”

The scene has since become one of the most memorable endings in cinema, the shot of a lone tape recorder playing Harris’ confession. Many believed at the time that it was Morris’ intention to film the conversation in this unconventional way. Morris admits it's taken him some time to finally appreciate the power of the scene as it is. 

"The Jinx" fans may recall that Jarecki also uses shots of a tape recorder playing interviews with sources.

Morris admits he still wonders if Harris would have been as open to him on that day if a camera were in front of him. “I felt very strongly that I had a case, a very powerful case, with or without that,” he said. “But I may not have had as powerful a film.”

In "The Jinx," Jarecki speaks about the guilt of having to question Durst about new evidence he found after having built a relationship with his subject over the course of making the film. Morris felt similarly about Harris.

Although Morris was certain he was “a cold blooded killer,” he had spent numerous years talking to him on and off camera and began to like him. So, after the film's release, when he had to appear at Harris' trial for the unrelated killing of another man in Beaumont, Texas in 1985, he was extremely nervous that he would be called to the stand and betray his subject's trust. Morris says he was never called.

Morris' relationship with Harris was on such good terms, in fact, that the director spent time with Harris several hours before he was executed by lethal injection in 2004 in Texas for the murder of the Beaumont man. (Harris never officially confessed to killing the police officer.)

“We talked about his absolute conviction that he would never be executed," Morris said. "He didn't believe that it would ever happen, even a couple of hours before his death."Jarecki and his filmmaking team are preparing for the likely chance of being called in a future Durst trail.

But perhaps one of the biggest things that links the two films are their ties to advocacy journalism and the paradox of providing new information to the authorities for the good of society versus keeping it to use for their films. The release of "The Thin Blue Line" in theaters in 1988, which at that time for a documentary was unheard of, didn't only get a man off death row but brought more discussions to the fore about capital punishment.

"The Jinx" doesn’t have such lofty aspirations, but Jarecki and his team discovered new evidence that could link Durst to unsolved murder cases. There are now questions as to whether Jarecki and company delivered materials to authorities in a timely fashion, but the LAPD have denied that their arrest of Durst was related to findings in "The Jinx." 

Recently, filmmaker Joe Berlinger — who along with his filmmaking partner Bruce Sinofsky brought new evidence in the case of the West Memphis Three in their "Paradise Lost" films that eventually got them off death row — commented on this topic following the final episode of "The Jinx."

"The great success of 'The Jinx' raises, for me, issues we have been grappling with and that is the continued blurring of the lines between reporting and entertainment. Documentaries are in a unique position to go the distance … you can go deep and you can get answers, but at the same time there are some issues. The selective withholding of information at the right dramatic moment, the recreation of gory details that are painful for those involved, and yet, it's entertainment. So I think this raises a lot of issues, the most important of which is when somebody knows something that is key to a case when do you communicate that to the police?"

For "The Thin Blue Line," Morris struggled with the issue of when to divulge new evidence he'd uncovered to the authorities, because they were convinced they had got their man.

"I'm sure there were Dallas police officers who, until their dying day, believed Randall Adams was guilty," he said.

And Morris did not trust Adams' lawyer, either. "Inevitably you always, in life as in art, volunteer and withhold information for a lot of different reasons. Some of them are defensible reasons, some are indefensible reasons. I came to distrust Randall Adams' attorney and I withheld information from the attorney while I was doing my investigation for a number of reasons. I would defend those reasons to this day. And I reached a certain point where I knew I had to turn over everything I had to him. Didn't like him. Think he's the principal reason why Randall Adams sued me. But I realized I had to give him everything. It was the correct thing to do."

That is the main point behind any true-crime story, according the Morris. Whether it be told through a novel or movie, whether the subjects are arrested the day before the story we're watching ends or years later, regardless how great the stories are presented to the audience or how popular they become, it isn't what closes a case.

"What a documentary should do is make you think about what is true and false," Morris said. "It should make you question the nature of the evidence that you are being presented with. When people say ["The Thin Blue Line"] got Adams out of prison I remind them it brought an unknown, unheralded, obscure case to national attention. It was the evidence, the evidence I uncovered, that got him out of prison."

Randall Dale Adams would eventually go free in 1989 and "The Thin Blue Line" would become a classic, added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2001.

As of today, “The Thin Blue Line” is available now on Blu-ray through The Criterion Collection. 

SEE ALSO: Oscar-winning director Errol Morris reveals what his Netflix series will be about

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NOW WATCH: Hugh Hefner's Son Has A Surprising And Inspiring Attitude Toward Women

Tom Cruise has always boasted that he does his own stunts.

Whether it’s driving a race car in “Days of Thunder,” battling enemies with a samurai sword in “The Last Samurai”... 

... Or climbing the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, in “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol,” the megastar has prided himself on giving audiences an authentic experience.

But with the release of the trailer for the new “Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation,” Cruise proved himself as one of the toughest guys in Hollywood.

In the much-hyped trailer, Cruise, reprising his role as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, ends up on a giant Airbus A400M plane and is hanging from the door as it takes off.

In today’s era of Hollywood plugging in CGI for almost anything, when watching the scene teased one would likely assume it was done in a sound studio covered in green screen with a giant fan to project the star of the movie.

But that's not Tom Cruise's style.

“I knew I wanted to have an airplane sequence. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time," Cruise told Yahoo Movies UK during an interview with director Christopher McQuarrie. "As a kid I remember flying on an airplane and thinking: ‘what would it be like out on the wing or on the side of the airplane?!’”

So after eight takes on a runway in England, Cruise's childhood dream finally came true.

Cruise and McQuarrie were both aware that they had to top the stunt of Cruise climbing Dubai's Burj Khalifa in “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” (which he also did without a stunt double).

When the production designer brought McQuarrie a model of an Airbus plane, the director joked to Cruise, “What if you were on the outside of this thing when it took off?’ Cruise replied, “Yeah, I could do that.”

Discussions began and the major concern was debris on the runway or bird strikes. According to Cruise the production spent days clearing the grass near the runway of any birds. But Cruise was also concerned about something no one else was bringing up: fuel.

“You have jet fuel coming right out of the back at me because I’m on the wing of the engine,” he said. “Even when we were taxying I was also inhaling the fumes and [it] was going in my eyes.”

To help the fumes and any particles getting in his eyes, Cruise was given custom contact lenses that covered his entire eyeballs, but the threat of being struck by something on the runway was real.

“I remember one time we were going down the runway and there was just a little particle that just hit me, it was smaller than a finger nail,” Cruise recalls. “I was thankful it didn’t hit my hands or face, if it did I’d have a problem because those parts were exposed, but it still could have broken my ribs!”

“When that thing was going down the runway it was everything to keep my feet down, then it went up and my body was slamming on the side. I was like whoa, this is intense," the actor tells Yahoo.

Cruise notes that he was strapped to the side of the plane from the moment the engine started to the moment it landed and the engine shut down — "The climb, the taxi, down the runway, getting the shot, leveling off, turning around and landing. And I did it EIGHT TIMES to get the shot.”

“It’s the most dangerous thing I’ve even done, to be honest,” said Cruise. He notes that climbing a mountain in Moab for “Mission: Impossible 2” and the Burj Khalifa in “Ghost Protocol” were dangerous...

But when they got this shot, he said, “We’re not doing it anymore!”

SEE ALSO: The 4 most insane stunts from 'Mission: Impossible' trailers

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NOW WATCH: Watch 52-year-old Tom Cruise beat up bad guys in the new 'Mission: Impossible' trailer

Warner Brothers just released a new trailer for the cinematic adaptation of the hit HBO series "Entourage." In what looks like an extremely fun, extended episode of the show, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) and the boys continue to navigate the choppy waters of Hollywood as Vincent Chase (Adrien Grenier) declares he wants to become a director.

But enough about the plot! The trailer features plenty of bikini-clad ladies, super-cars and yachts -- all of which will undoubtedly lure the show's faithful fanbase into theaters.

The movie also promises myriad celebrity cameos. Some standouts include Warren Buffett and Ronda Rousey, but there are literally too many to name here. Maybe this gif will help:

"Entourage" opens on June 5th.

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We finally have an idea of how one of DC comic's iconic villains will look in the big "Batman V Superman" movie out next summer.

Jesse Eisenberg ("The Social Network") will be taking on the role of the Man of Steel's arch nemesis Lex Luthor.

The casting back in January 2014 was a bit of a surprise because it meant the 31-year-old actor would most likely have to cut off his locks for the role.

Luthor, a billionaire scientist and CEO of his own company LexCorp, is known for being bald.

While filming for "Batman V Superman" has been underway for some time, Eisenberg has been very careful to keep his new look under wraps.

DC Entertainment chief creative officer Geoff Johns teased the first image of Eisenberg in the upcoming film in which his hair is clearly gone.

DC Entertainment since released the image on Instagram.

Director Zack Snyder spoke with Entertainment Weekly revealing how this version of Luthor will be different than others fans have seen on screen before.  

“He’s not any of the Lexes that you’ve seen, that’s for sure,” Snyder told EW. “… other than him being a captain of industry and one person to the world and another person to himself. And bald, of course.” 

“Our Lex is disarming and he’s not fake,” he added. “He says what he believes and he says what’s on his mind. If you can unravel the string and decipher what he means, it’s all there.”

"Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" is in theaters March 25, 2016.

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NOW WATCH: Disney just dropped another 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' trailer — and it's the best one yet

Early reports have predicted the next "Fast and Furious" film, "Furious 7," could debut to record-breaking $115 million opening weekend April 3. Lead star and producer Vin Diesel thinks the action flick has even more potential.

In a recent profile in Variety, Diesel reflected on the "Fast" franchise, the death of his close friend and costar Paul Walker, and his belief that "Furious 7" should win best picture at the Oscars next year.

“Universal is going to have the biggest movie in history with this movie,” Diesel told Variety. “It will probably win best picture at the Oscars, unless the Oscars don’t want to be relevant ever.”

“This will win best picture,” Diesel added. “There is nothing that will ever come close to the power of this thing.”

Diesel has a lot of faith in the "Furious" franchise. He describes himself as the "saga visionary" and Universal relied on Diesel for everything from laying out story structure to picking the songs on the soundtrack. He even turned down the opportunity to star in "2 Fast 2 Furious" saying that he would have taken a more "Francis Ford Coppola approach" to the sequel, as opposed to just rehashing the original idea. 

With Coppola in mind, Oscar glory has clearly always been one of Diesel's ambitions.

The marketing for "Furious 7" has taken on a much more serious approach than other franchise installments have taken in the past.

One of the many criticisms against the Oscars is that they lean towards smaller indies as opposed to bigger films with both critical praise and big box-office numbers to match. After the snub of "The Dark Knight," the Academy stretched the best picture award to ten nominees in 2009.

The inclusion of more nominees arguably led to the inclusion of such box-office hits as "Avatar,""Toy Story 3," and "Gravity" getting nominations. However, with rumors swirling that the Academy may go back to five best picture nominees, a "Furious 7" nod seems less likely.

While early reviews have been positive so far with an 88% score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to Variety, one Universal studio executive simply "chuckled" after being told about Diesel's prediction.

SEE ALSO: 'Fast and Furious 7' is an absolutely ridiculous thrill ride and Paul Walker tribute that fans will love

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NOW WATCH: The new 'Furious 7' trailer is packed full of cars, explosions, and ridiculous stunts

Call it a double-edged lightsaber.

Every actor in Hollywood chases Star Wars, hoping the gig will provide instant A-list entree. But the Star Wars track record is filled with underachievers and stalled careers.

Six movies in, the franchise has spawned just one megastar: Harrison Ford.

"The problem is, when you are in such a massive franchise — and there's no bigger franchise than Star Wars — a lot of moviegoers look at an actor and only can see the character they played in it," says Phil Contrino, analyst at Boxoffice.com.

Natalie Portman, who already had a hot career before Episodes I-III, admitted she struggled after the exposure. "Everyone thought I was a horrible actress," she said in December. "I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade, and no director wanted to work with me."

Neither Ewan McGregor nor Liam Neeson was helped by the franchise.

McGregor famously fell out as the lead in Danny Boyle's The Beach in favor of Leonardo DiCaprio around the same time as Episode I's 1999 release.

The list of acting careers that never took off is even longer, from original stars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher to Jake Lloyd (young Anakin Skywalker) and most notably Hayden Christensen, whose star was on the rise when he nabbed 2002's Attack of the Clones.

Manager/producer Mike Marcus, who booked director Irvin Kershner for The Empire Strikes Backand Richard Marquand for Return of the Jedi, says the career implosions are coincidence.

"I don't think it ever hurt any actors," says the former CAA agent. "Maybe they weren't going to be a movie star anyway. This at least gave them a shot." The upcoming trilogy and interspersed spinoffs pose new challenges for stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac and even Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o.

"When you sign up for this, you're signing your life away, and you're keeping yourself from any other franchises out there," says an agent whose client is one of the stars of Episode VII. "They will not let you be in another franchise. They're going to be cranking out a new movie every year. These actors never get to read the script before signing on. They don't even know which [subsequent] one they are in. And then they become known for that role, and it's hard to see them in a Fault in Our Stars kind of movie."

Also, the pay is meager.

Sources say the newcomers can only command $65,000 to $125,000 for Episode VII, with sequel options exponentially greater. Still, agents will keep pursuing. Paradigm's Sarah Fargo, whose client, Domhnall Gleeson, was cast in Episode VII, sees only upside: "It secures all involved a place in film history and guarantees a huge global audience, enhancing an actor's marketability."

SEE ALSO: The legendary composer behind every 'Star Wars' movie ever made is going to sit one out

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NOW WATCH: Adam Savage From 'MythBusters' Has An Incredible Connection To The 'Star Wars' Franchise

Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen on HBO's "Game of Thrones," is no stranger to onscreen nudity.

Yet, this was the exact reason she turned down the lead role in "Fifty Shades of Grey."

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Clarke said that she doesn't want to build an entire career off of it.

"I'd done nudity before and was concerned with being labeled for doing it again," she explained. "No regrets."

Clarke was not the only big name to turn down"Fifty Shades," which has grossed about $558.6 million worldwide since its February 13 release.

Shailene Woodley was an early favorite to play Anastasia Steele, but she had to turn it down because of press obligations for "Divergent." Ryan Gosling was a possible contender for Christian Grey, because of his strict "no sequels" philosophy. 

Because of her busy "Game of Thrones" shooting schedule, Clarke has had to turn down several other films as well, including Oliver Stone's "Snowden."

But with a reported salary of $7 million per season for "Thrones" (Clarke denies this number, and simply says that the show "takes very good care of [her]"), and a starring role in the upcoming "Terminator: Genisys," out July 1, the 28-year-old actress is doing all right for herself.

SEE ALSO: I read 'Fifty Shades of Grey' with my boyfriend and it changed our relationship

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NOW WATCH: Here's the 'Terminator' trailer that just aired during the Super Bowl

We all have that actor we wish they’d kill off sooner than they do.

Well, here are the ones directors choose to kill off most frequently.

Vocativ analyzed how often various actor have “died” in their movie careers and found the stars with the highest fictional fatality rates.

We compared the number of films in which they’ve acted to the number of films in which they’ve died to get their rate of “killability.”

The top 20 most “killable” actors have a death rate of anywhere from 15 percent to 30 percent.

It turns out boxer Mickey Rourke is the actor who’s seen the most of the afterlife, killed off in an impressive 29.7 percent of all the films he’s appeared in over 30 years. Scottish actor Tommy Flanagan, of Gladiator and Sin City fame, comes in a close second, killed by directors in 26.1 percent of his movies.

Leonardo DiCaprio comes in fourth, with a one-in-four chance of keeling over in any given movie. Out of the 36 films in which DiCaprio appeared, he only made it out of 27 alive. Sean Bean—often noted as the actor who dies most often—dies during one in five of his films. Impressive, but he’s no Mickey Rourke.

Curiously, the only woman on our list of the top 20 most killable actors is Eva Green, who played “Vesper Lynd” in Casino Royale and won fame from her role in the 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven. She was killed off in three of the 15 films she’s been in, skewing her rating higher. Second most killable is Charlize Theron, who died in way more films (25) than Eva Green, but has had a longer career, starring in 165 films altogether.

Check our our list of more than 100 actors to see how often your favorite kicks the bucket.

SEE ALSO: Why Emilia Clarke turned down the lead in 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

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NOW WATCH: Warren Buffett is in the new trailer for the 'Entourage' movie

Now that Alex Gibney’s new investigative documentary on Scientology, "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" is in limited release, everybody is talking about its bombshell revelations about the church.

One of the biggest is Scientologists' answer to how the universe began and the secret of life. The incredible story that Scientologists believe involves a galactic overlord by the name of Xenu, a volcano, and souls that attach themselves to newborn babies.

The story may sound familiar, either for those who have studied Scientology or viewers of "South Park."

Back in 2005, the creators of the Comedy Central show told the same story in their famous episode, “Trapped in the Closet.”

The episode follows character Stan, who, after taking a free test from the church, learns his results are so high that the leaders of the church have declared he’s the reincarnation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.Scientologists, including John Travolta and Tom Cruise, visit Stan’s house to pay their respects. But Cruise goes to hide in the closet after Stan tells him he's not a good actor.

This then leads to a parody of R. Kelly's rap opera, “Trapped in the Closet,” as celebrities ranging from Nicole Kidman to Kelly try to talk Cruise out of the closet. While this takes place, Scientology’s president shows up to tell Stan what Scientologists believe in.

Many parts of the episode include the text "This is what Scientologists actually believe" at the bottom of the screen during the retelling, because to many it sounds so unbelievable, or like a parody.  

Here's what Scientologists believe.

75 million years ago, there was a galactic federation of planets ruled by Lord Xenu. 

Xenu thought his planets were overpopulated, so he gathered aliens from all different planets ...

... and had them frozen.

Those frozen bodies were packed into galactic cruisers, which looked like jet-liners, except with rocket engines, and were brought to Earth.

The frozen bodies were dumped into the volcanoes of Hawaii.

The aliens died, but their souls floated to the sky.

Xenu had prepared for this.

He didn’t want their souls to make their way back to the federation of plants, so he had the souls gathered by giant soul catchers.

The souls were taken to a brain washing facility Xenu built on Earth.

They spent days being brainwashed, which tricked them into believing a false reality.

Those souls were then released and roamed the Earth confused. At the Dawn of Man, the souls attached themselves to all mankind — causing fears, confusions, and problems that still plague humanity today.

The Scientology origin stories told in both "Going Clear" and "South Park" are almost identical. The only glaring difference is that "South Park" portrays the aliens as looking non-human, while "Going Clear" says they looked exactly like people.

"Trapped in the Closet" was written and directed by "South Park" co-creator Trey Parker, and led to the show taking a lot of heat as Comedy Central delayed its airing allegedly in fear that Tom Cruise or the church would turn to litigation against the network. (The network and Cruise's reps have denied this.)

Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef on the show and also a Scientologist, quit the show once he learned what the episode would be about. 

The Church of Scientology has not denied the stories of its beliefs, and L.Ron Hubbard even gives a narration of the tale in "Going Clear" via a past recording.

"Going Clear" airs on HBO March 29.

Here’s the full clip from the "South Park" episode.

SEE ALSO: The Church of Scientology launched a failed Twitter campaign against HBO's new documentary

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The long-awaited "Deadpool" movie is out in less than a year, and star Ryan Reynolds has shared the first photo of himself in costume as the mischievous Marvel antihero.

For those unfamiliar with the character, Deadpool's a comic character who knows he's a comic character. He often breaks the fourth wall and talks to the reader and himself inside his comics.

Reynolds has been working for awhile to get a "Deadpool" movie made after playing the character in 2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" movie.

The official Twitter account for the film also revealed the Deadpool costume. 

In hilarious Deadpool fashion, the account is only following one other Twitter account: Hello Kitty.

It's clear Fox, which is distributing the film, has a handle on the character's psyche.

"Deadpool" is in theaters February 12, 2016.

SEE ALSO: Ryan Reynolds tweets first photo for "Deadpool" movie

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One of the surprise box office success stories of 2015 is “Kingsman: The Secret Service.”

The comic adaptation spy thriller starring Colin Firth and directed by Matthew Vaughn (“X-Men: First Class”) got strong reviews and surprised Fox when it opened second at the U.S. box office its opening weekend with a solid $41 million take, especially up against the much anticipated “Fifty Shades of Grey” over Presidents Day weekend.

But that pales in comparison to the impact the movie has made on the people of South Korea.

The film opened in South Korea in mid-February and has since earned $40 million, making it the film’s highest-grossing market abroad (behind the UK and Australia). It is also the top R-rated title from the States to show there since 2006’s “300” and the biggest Fox earner there since “Avatar.” 

So why do so many South Koreans love well-dressed Englishmen kicking butt?

It seems Fox capitalized on a few headline-grabbing incidents that recently went on in the country that have since spiraled into viral sensations.

According to The Wrap, the Fox marketing team in South Korea used local incidents in which the wealthy were abusing their power — like when the vice-chairwoman of Korean Air ordered the plane she was on to turn around so that she could kick off the crew member who served her nuts in a plastic bag instead of on a plate — in the marketing of the film. 

“We decided to take advantage of this and made three viral videos similar to real-life incidents to promote the film,” Tom Oh, one of Fox’s top men in Korea, told The Wrap. “Everything came together to create a massive hit.”

The campaign got so big in South Korea that it was parodied on the country’s equivalent of “Saturday Night Live,” "SNL Korea," where the host, South Korean singer Haha, spoofed the movie.

Here's a parody of the "Kingsman" poster used on the show.

Here's the real poster.

In “Kingsman,” the film focuses on a young man with a troubled home life who is recruited by Firth to become part of an elite spy team.

"While class struggles are prevalent in all countries, the national dissatisfaction combined with a hip, stylish and fun film about an underdog succeeding made for a perfect film for audiences to release stress,” Fox’s Tom Oh told The Wrap. 

"Kingsman" has become so big in South Korea, in fact, that since the film opened, one department store saw sales for its double-breasted suits raise 64% in February. 

We'll see if the film's popularity in South Korea will spread to China, where the film opens next week. 

Here's one of the promo videos.

SEE ALSO: 8 American actors who are shockingly huge stars overseas

MORE: This movie starring Jackie Chan, Adrien Brody, and John Cusack is huge in China right now

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The first teaser trailer for the next James Bond movie, “Spectre,” debuted on 007.com and it’s shrouded in mystery.

Daniel Craig returns as 007 in the 24th Bond film.

2012's "Skyfall" made over $1 billion in theaters.

"Spectre" is in theaters November 6, 2015.

SEE ALSO: Here's the first poster for the next James Bond movie

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Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen on HBO's "Game of Thrones," is no stranger to onscreen nudity.

Yet, this was the exact reason she turned down the lead role in "Fifty Shades of Grey."

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Clarke said that she doesn't want to build an entire career off of it.

"I'd done nudity before and was concerned with being labeled for doing it again," she explained. "No regrets."

Clarke was not the only big name to turn down"Fifty Shades," which has grossed about $558.6 million worldwide since its February 13 release.

Shailene Woodley was an early favorite to play Anastasia Steele, but she had to turn it down because of press obligations for "Divergent." Ryan Gosling was a possible contender for Christian Grey, because of his strict "no sequels" philosophy. 

Because of her busy "Game of Thrones" shooting schedule, Clarke has had to turn down several other films as well, including Oliver Stone's "Snowden."

But with a reported salary of $7 million per season for "Thrones" (Clarke denies this number, and simply says that the show "takes very good care of [her]"), and a starring role in the upcoming "Terminator: Genisys," out July 1, the 28-year-old actress is doing all right for herself.

SEE ALSO: I read 'Fifty Shades of Grey' with my boyfriend and it changed our relationship

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From its striking reenactments to its shocking conclusion, HBO’s "The Jinx" has become our latest true-crime fix. But with the series over where do you go now to consume a juicy real life whodunit?

Coincidentally, the film that started the true-crime film genre just became available on Blu-ray Tuesday for the first time ever.

“The Thin Blue Line” (1988) is Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris’ masterpiece that reexamines the 1976 murder of a slain Texas police officer in which Randall Dale Adams was convicted and sentenced to death. Morris interviews most of the lawyers, investigators, and witnesses involved in the case in an attempt to prove that Adams was innocent of the crime. Morris also interviewed David Harris, who said he was in the car with Adams when the murder took place.

His testimony was one of the chief reasons Adams was convicted, but "The Thin Blue Line" suggests that it was actually Harris who was guilty.

And to top this incredible story, Morris added something that set his film apart from the talking heads in documentaries of the 1980s; he incorporated lush reenactments of the night in question accompanied by a stirring score from composer Philip Glass (he’s since done the music for four more Morris films) to create an immersive experience that elevates the story and makes you feel you're right there investigating what really happened. "The Jinx" incorporates similarly vivid reenactments. 

"The Jinx" and "The Thin Blue Line" both have shocking endings. In the former, the real-estate heir Robert Durst apparently confesses to killing his wife, his good friend, and his neighbor when he utters the phrase, "What the hell did I do? Killed them all of course."

At the end of "The Thin Blue Line," Harris admits to Morris it was he, not Adams, who killed the police officer.

Morris, who talked to Business Insider from Los Angeles last week, says he hasn't seen "The Jinx" yet, but moments he recounts from his experience making "The Thin Blue Line" are almost a carbon copy of what we see "The Jinx" director Andrew Jarecki go through while making his HBO documentary series. 

Like in the final episode of "The Jinx" where Jarecki is filled with anxiety preparing for the final interview with Durst, Morris told BI he also had his own issues when doing his final interview with Harris. Perhaps even worse than Jarecki's nerves, Morris' camera malfunctioned while interviewing Harris and he had to tape record their conversation instead of filming it.

“I thought it was a disaster at the time,” said Morris. “I remember I came home from doing the interview with the tape recorder and I started crying.”

The scene has since become one of the most memorable endings in cinema, the shot of a lone tape recorder playing Harris’ confession. Many believed at the time that it was Morris’ intention to film the conversation in this unconventional way. Morris admits it's taken him some time to finally appreciate the power of the scene as it is. 

"The Jinx" fans may recall that Jarecki also uses shots of a tape recorder playing interviews with sources.

Morris admits he still wonders if Harris would have been as open to him on that day if a camera were in front of him. “I felt very strongly that I had a case, a very powerful case, with or without that,” he said. “But I may not have had as powerful a film.”

In "The Jinx," Jarecki speaks about the guilt of having to question Durst about new evidence he found after having built a relationship with his subject over the course of making the film. Morris felt similarly about Harris.

Although Morris was certain he was “a cold blooded killer,” he had spent numerous years talking to him on and off camera and began to like him. So, after the film's release, when he had to appear at Harris' trial for the unrelated killing of another man in Beaumont, Texas in 1985, he was extremely nervous that he would be called to the stand and betray his subject's trust. Morris says he was never called.

Morris' relationship with Harris was on such good terms, in fact, that the director spent time with Harris several hours before he was executed by lethal injection in 2004 in Texas for the murder of the Beaumont man. (Harris never officially confessed to killing the police officer.)

“We talked about his absolute conviction that he would never be executed," Morris said. "He didn't believe that it would ever happen, even a couple of hours before his death."Jarecki and his filmmaking team are preparing for the likely chance of being called in a future Durst trail.

But perhaps one of the biggest things that links the two films are their ties to advocacy journalism and the paradox of providing new information to the authorities for the good of society versus keeping it to use for their films. The release of "The Thin Blue Line" in theaters in 1988, which at that time for a documentary was unheard of, didn't only get a man off death row but brought more discussions to the fore about capital punishment.

"The Jinx" doesn’t have such lofty aspirations, but Jarecki and his team discovered new evidence that could link Durst to unsolved murder cases. There are now questions as to whether Jarecki and company delivered materials to authorities in a timely fashion, but the LAPD have denied that their arrest of Durst was related to findings in "The Jinx." 

Recently, filmmaker Joe Berlinger — who along with his filmmaking partner Bruce Sinofsky brought new evidence in the case of the West Memphis Three in their "Paradise Lost" films that eventually got them off death row — commented on this topic following the final episode of "The Jinx."

"The great success of 'The Jinx' raises, for me, issues we have been grappling with and that is the continued blurring of the lines between reporting and entertainment. Documentaries are in a unique position to go the distance … you can go deep and you can get answers, but at the same time there are some issues. The selective withholding of information at the right dramatic moment, the recreation of gory details that are painful for those involved, and yet, it's entertainment. So I think this raises a lot of issues, the most important of which is when somebody knows something that is key to a case when do you communicate that to the police?"

For "The Thin Blue Line," Morris struggled with the issue of when to divulge new evidence he'd uncovered to the authorities, because they were convinced they had got their man.

"I'm sure there were Dallas police officers who, until their dying day, believed Randall Adams was guilty," he said.

And Morris did not trust Adams' lawyer, either. "Inevitably you always, in life as in art, volunteer and withhold information for a lot of different reasons. Some of them are defensible reasons, some are indefensible reasons. I came to distrust Randall Adams' attorney and I withheld information from the attorney while I was doing my investigation for a number of reasons. I would defend those reasons to this day. And I reached a certain point where I knew I had to turn over everything I had to him. Didn't like him. Think he's the principal reason why Randall Adams sued me. But I realized I had to give him everything. It was the correct thing to do."

That is the main point behind any true-crime story, according the Morris. Whether it be told through a novel or movie, whether the subjects are arrested the day before the story we're watching ends or years later, regardless how great the stories are presented to the audience or how popular they become, it isn't what closes a case.

"What a documentary should do is make you think about what is true and false," Morris said. "It should make you question the nature of the evidence that you are being presented with. When people say ["The Thin Blue Line"] got Adams out of prison I remind them it brought an unknown, unheralded, obscure case to national attention. It was the evidence, the evidence I uncovered, that got him out of prison."

Randall Dale Adams would eventually go free in 1989 and "The Thin Blue Line" would become a classic, added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2001.

As of today, “The Thin Blue Line” is available now on Blu-ray through The Criterion Collection. 

SEE ALSO: Oscar-winning director Errol Morris reveals what his Netflix series will be about

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Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”) remembers how he reacted the first time he was offered the chance to do a film on the Church of Scientology.

"I turned it down," he told Business Insider recently at HBO's New York City offices. Like many filmmakers who wanted to investigate Scientology, the uncertainty of doing it without getting bogged down in an expensive legal battle turned him off of the project.

But two years ago the offer came back around and this time he couldn't turn away.

What was different was the involvement of journalist Lawrence Wright — who Gibney previously worked with on “My Trip to Al-Qaeda” — and his latest book, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & The Prison of Belief.”

Gibney couldn't put the book down and so started a two-year journey making “Going Clear,” opening theatrically in limited release March 13 and on HBO March 29.

The documentary highlights the church’s origins by creator L. Ron Hubbard, the celebrities who made the religion intriguing to the world, and the horrific stories of abuse from former members. But Gibney says for him the entry point was not the sensationalism but rather the people who seeked out Scientology to find better lives.

"I was like Larry, he wanted to find out what people got out of it," said Gibney. "And from my previous films (“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” and “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks”) I got very interested in noble cause corruption and how when people are convinced of the nobility of the belief system they can do the most appalling things."

First, Gibney had to decide which stories to investigate from Wright's book.

Knowing he couldn't touch on all of them in a two-hour film, he homed in on some of the major stories: Scientology's battle to be recognized as a tax-exempt religious organization, how the church has used movie stars like John Travolta and Tom Cruise to heighten its profile and in some cases manipulating them so they stay in the church, and the high-level members who left Scientology and were willing to speak out, like Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis.

Haggis had already blown the lid off the inner workings of Scientology when he talked to Wright for The New Yorker in 2011, which is what sparked Wright to write his book. 

Scientology, however, has built a reputation for not only going after people who try to uncover church happenings but also tormenting members who leave it either by surveillance or harassment. Aware of this, Gibney says he took very cautious steps to ensure the safety of those who spoke in front of his camera. He would never film the former members at their homes, and Gibney would never arrive at meeting places at the same time as his subjects.

Gibney’s approach to secrecy came from his talks with Wright, who used similar methods when he interviewed former church members for his book. “I often used throw-away phones and encrypted e-mail,” he said. “People were so frightened.”

Gibney would discover that fear also spread to the media. Licensing footage of anything related to Scientology for his film through the major news outlets turned out to be impossible. “They all declined to license it to us for legal reasons,” he said, which forced him and his team to declare fair-use, permitting limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission.

But the biggest battle is the one Gibney and HBO are currently facing.

Since the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Scientology has gone on the attack to discredit Gibney and the film. The church bought out a full-page ad in The New York Times before it screened at Sundance, comparing Gibney and his work to the now infamous Rolling Stone story about rape at the University of Virginia.

In February, the Church released a video on the YouTube page of its publication Freedom denouncing the film’s claims about the horrible living arrangements for its Sea Organization members — the clergy of Scientology who sign billion-year contracts to serve the church — instead showing lush locations they inhabit and the beautiful facilities the church offers members.

Gibney told BI that he did reach out to Scientology to comment for the film, as well as Travolta and Cruise, but all declined. HBO Documentary Films president Sheila Nevins has said the production company has around 160 lawyers looking at the film. 

Gibney believes that all of these tactics done by the church to discredit his film are intended not for the general public but for the members of Scientology (which, according to the film, is around 50,000 people).

“They are playing a PR game with them to say, ‘Look at these evil people who are attacking us. Look how valiantly we are trying to defend our organization,’” he said.

But, says Gibney, "There is this palpable sense that the storm is turning," he said. "Something is changing."

"Going Clear" opens theatrically in limited release March 13 and on HBO March 29.

SEE ALSO: Here's why HBO's Scientology documentary is so critical of Tom Cruise

MORE: 6 Crazy Things Revealed In HBO's Explosive New Scientology Documentary 'Going Clear'

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When L. Ron Hubbard founded the Church of Scientology in February 1954 in Los Angeles, one of his main pillars in building its membership was courting celebrities.

A year after the church was founded, it created a long list of celebrities to recruit, according to Lawrence Wright's best-selling book "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & The Prison of Belief."The list reportedly included Hollywood royalty like Marlene Dietrich, Walt Disney, Jackie Gleason, John Ford, Bob Hope, and Howard Hughes. It's hard to find evidence of these legends ever entertaining the idea of joining the church, but it appears that Hubbard saw movie stars as a way of legitimizing Scientology.

Six decades later, Hubbard's premonition proved to be correct. Scientology, which today has only about 50,000 members, is worth over $1.2 billion, and much of its financial success is in part thanks to famous people who have fundraised, recruited, and given the church access to the upper echelon of society.

For years, two of the church's most prized endorsers have been John Travolta and Tom Cruise.

But director Alex Gibney suggests in his latest documentary for HBO, an adaptation of Wright's book called "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief," that it is time for Travolta and Cruise to reassess their involvement with the church, in part because of the abuse their fellow members have allegedly endured.

The film highlights numerous instances in which church members have allegedly been abused. Members have allegedly been segregated from their families and the rest of the church to do physical labor like cleaning toilets with only a toothbrush.

In the documentary, Gibney speaks with one of Travolta's closest confidants at the church, Spanky Taylor, who says she was part of a group that was punished by the church.

Taylor says she was forced to work 30-hour shifts with little food and slept on the roof of the church's Los Angeles building. She says she was pregnant at the time and away from her infant daughter, who was placed in the church's nursery in a urine-soaked crib surrounded by fruit flies. In the movie, Taylor says she reached out to Travolta for help but never heard from him.

According to the film, Cruise has also turned a blind eye to the harassment suffered by Sea Organization members, the clergy of Scientology who reportedly show their loyalty by signing billion-year contracts but get paid only about 40 cents an hour for their services. The film alleges that the presents Cruise receives on behalf of the church — like a beautiful airplane hangar or luxury limousine — are delivered on the sweat of Sea Org members.

So why are Cruise and Travolta still in Scientology?

The film alleges that the church would disclose the celebrities' deepest, darkest confessions to the tabloids if they ever tried to leave the church.

That's because the pair have reportedly spent hours and hours of their lives submitting to Scientology audits, the church's form of spiritual counseling.

When Business Insider talked to Gibney last week at HBO's New York offices, the director said he felt it was the duty of Cruise and Travolta to speak out, and he hoped the attention of "Going Clear" would make it easier for them to do so.

"I think one of the reasons we're trying to turn the spotlight on them is not to victimize them but to say you really have a responsibility," Gibney told us. "You're given an enormous amount of wealth as a movie star and with that comes a certain amount of responsibility, particularly when people are joining an organization because of you. If the popular opinion begins to swing that way, I think you can see a sea change with them."

For Cruise it may be harder to get out. The film reveals just how important he is to the church, suggesting Scientology went as far as breaking up Cruise and Nicole Kidman's marriage to bring him closer to the church after he began distancing himself around the time he and Kidman filmed Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eye's Wide Shut," in 1998.

Orchestrated by Scientology's leader, David Miscavige, the church turned the two adoptive children of Cruise and Kidman's against Kidman, according to former Scientology executives who speak in the film.

The church allegedly told the children that Kidman was a "Suppressive Person," Scientology talk for someone who's not a believer of the church, and persuaded them to completely disconnect themselves from her.

The church also allegedly tapped Kidman's phones in an effort to convince Cruise that he needed to end the relationship.

Gibney and Wright, along with former Scientology members Mike Rinder and Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis, talked more about these issues in the film recently at a New York Times "Times Talk."

A representative for Scientology told People.com these assertions made were "utterly ludicrous" and "insulting" to Miscavige. 

Reps for Cruise and Travolta didn't respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

"Going Clear" opens theatrically in limited release March 13 and on HBO on March 29.

SEE ALSO: How a filmmaker finally infiltrated Scientology for HBO's explosive documentary

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HBO’s documentary on the Church of Scientology, “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” addresses rumors that have been swirling for years about the church. But the film's director, Alex Gibney, didn't tackle one of the biggest Scientology mysteries — the current location of the wife of Scientology leader, David Miscavige.

“At the end of the day, rather than doing stone skipping and covering as much as possible in a superficial way we chose to dig in on certain things,” Gibney told Business Insider on why he left the story out of the documentary.

Gibney also told BI that though there was a longer version of the film that included more details about Scientology, the story of Miscavige’s allegedly missing wife, Shelley, was never investigated and they never filmed anything about it.

Shelley has allegedly been missing since 2006, reportedly following an incident where she filled several job vacancies without her husband’s permission, as initially reported by The New Yorker’s Lawrence Wright (who would go on to write “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & The Prison of Belief,” the book that inspired Gibney’s film). 

To be clear, a spokesperson for the Church of Scientology has denied to Business Insider that Shelley is missing. That spokesperson called the HBO documentary a "propaganda film." (See the full statement at the end of this article.)

Church spokespeople have repeatedly denied through the years that Shelley is missing, Vanity Fair reported last year, but the rumors of her absence persist.

In 2012, Steve Hall, a former Scientologist, told BI that he believes she’s staying at the little-known “Church of Spiritual Technology,” a remote forest compound in Twin Peaks, California, near San Bernadino.

After actress Leah Remini, a 30-year vet of the church, left Scientology in 2013, she reportedly filed a missing persons report for Shelly with the Los Angeles Police Department. Her suspicion reportedly began years ago after noticing Shelly wasn’t with her husband at the 2006 wedding of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, in which David was Cruise’s best man. 

Around the time of Remini notifying the police, the journalist Tony Ortega, a longtime critic of the church with his blog "The Underground Bunker" (who is also featured in "Going Clear"), reported that Shelly is at the church’s secret compound in the mountains of Los Angeles.

Here's why Shelly is allegedly banished, according to Ortega:

“Early in 2004, at Scientology’s International Base — a secretive, 500-acre compound about 90 miles east of Los Angeles, near the town of Hemet — Miscavige took his ideas about discipline to strange new lengths. A few dozen executives he wanted to punish were locked into a set of rooms that had been an office, and “The Hole” was born. Over the next several years, even more executives who had fallen from his favor were added to the bizarre and harsh office-prison, reaching about 100 total prisoners.

Around that time, Miscavige also became obsessed with the base’s “Org Board.” It was a roster of jobs that Miscavige wanted filled, but for some reason his underlings could never fill out the empty slots in the roster to his satisfaction. People who worked there at the time tell us that Miscavige’s tirades about the org board were maddening and relentless.

Then in 2005, Miscavige did something surprising — he traveled to nearby Los Angeles to work on a publishing project, and Shelly stayed behind at the base. People who worked at the base tell us it was the first time they remembered seeing the couple apart.

Shelly took advantage of her husband’s absence to fill in the org board that had proved such a headache. She also made progress on another project Miscavige had been promising to start by moving his belongings out of a set of buildings called the ‘Villas.’ She moved his things into another set of rooms called ‘the G’s,’ so the Villas could be renovated…

When Miscavige returned from Los Angeles and found the org board filled and his belongings moved, he erupted. A week later — which was sometime late in 2005 or early in 2006, our sources tell us, Shelly vanished.” 

Business Insider reached out to Scientology to comment on Shelly's alleged disappearance:

"The false allegation about Mrs. Miscavige was debunked by the Los Angeles Police Department in a statement two years ago," a spokesperson for the church told BI in a written statement. "The police declared the rumor 'unfounded' and she continues in the Church as she always has. The notion that Mrs. Miscavige is missing is a conspiracy theory among Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright's unsavory sources. The rumor has resulted in the disgraceful harassment of Mr. and Mrs. Miscavige. It is disgusting. The Church has made information available about Mr. Gibney’s film at www.freedommag.org/hbo."

The Church of Scientology also disputed the existence of a place called "The Hole" to BI:

"This is another tired, false and offensive allegation. The only 'hole' at the Church property being referred to is on the golf course.  This again sources to the same small group of liars. This false propaganda was exposed as a lie in our video at freedommag.org/hbo/videos/exterminating-gibneys-propaganda.html."

But the so-called "hole" is featured in one of the most chilling scenes in “Going Clear.”

Former Scientology executives who claim to have been in the hole said Miscavige gathered the group in a room, put empty chairs in the middle of it, and told them to play musical chairs. He allegedly told them when one chair remained that person was allowed to stay in their position, and everyone else would be sent off to remote locations.

According to the film, Miscavige started playing the music, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and the staff began circling the chairs. When the music stopped the staff battled for seats. The fewer chairs that remained throughout the game, the more aggressive people were to get a chair, allegedly leading to punching and shoving. After one person finally remained, Miscavige told everyone in the room that he changed his mind and everyone was allowed to stay.

The group stayed in the hole and continued work on the org board, according to the film.

“This just is David Miscavige,” Mike Rinder, a former executive of Scientology who is featured in “Going Clear” and was involved in the alleged musical chairs incident, told reporters at HBO’s offices last week. “His personality type is sociopath. He takes a lot of things that in the hands of someone else would be innocuous and uses those as tools of weapons to abuse people.”

Scientology also disputed Rinder's comments. Rinder has since responded to BI to address the below comments from Scientology:

Scientology: "The source for these allegations, and Gibney’s primary subject, Mike Rinder, is talking about himself. Mr. Gibney and now yourself, due to prejudice and bias, have obliged in revising history for self-admitted suborners of perjury, perjurers and obstructers of justice."

Rinder: "I am no 'self-admitted suborner of perjury, perjuries and obstructer of justice' and I challenge them to produce whatever documents they say they have. This is a typical scientology sleaze. They claim [fellow former Scientology executive] Marty Rathbun admitted to doing this WHILE HE WAS EMPLOYED BY THE CHURCH and then ascribe it to me."

Scientology: "Mike Rinder admitted in a January deposition to the exact opposite of what he says to Mr. Gibney in the film and now to you."

Rinder: "No idea what they are referring to. And they don't cite the deposition or any specific statements that are 'the exact opposite.' Why not? They published portions of the deposition on their Freedom website? The entire transcript is available on Tony Ortega's site." 

Scientology: "He’s also a tainted source because he’s admitted to being paid by law firms seeking to score a payday suing the Church. You should know that just today the Church won a decisive victory in the case Rinder and his attorney clients had been hoping to hit the jackpot on."

Rinder: "Yes, I was hired as a consultant by several lawfirms. I testified in this deposition they refer to that it composed 10% of my income last year."

Scientology: "Rinder’s domestic abuse is documented by his ex-wife, brother, daughter and his ex-wife’s surgeon, and all of this would have been relevant to the film since Gibney shamelessly has Rinder lie about his ex-wife yet he didn’t ask her for comment or to sit for an interview, even when she was in New York to see him."

Rinder: "The alleged abuse is also documented by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and on BBC TV. It's covered in my blog. I didn't lie about my ex-wife. I didn't even MENTION that she came to Florida with 6 other people, followed me and assaulted me in the parking lot of a doctor's office. And the Sheriff's Office did NOT find any 'domestic abuse.'"

Scientology: "Alex Gibney and HBO cynically repackaged Mike Rinder into the poster boy for their new propaganda film. They flew Rinder around the country in five-star luxury to shill for their religious hatred, never mentioning that Rinder was expelled from his former religion for gross malfeasance. They hid that Mike Rinder can’t hold a job and his only source of income is payment for attacking Scientology. Gibney knew all this but relevant facts would have popped the phony bubble of legitimacy Gibney created around his 'star.'"

Rinder: "Funny, the same deposition they refer to, I told them EXACTYLY what I did for a living. And that only 10% of my income came from consulting law firms on scientology cases. Somehow that becomes 'can't hold a job' and 'my only source of income is payment for attacking scientology.' These people lie even when they don't need to. This isn't even relevant to any specific claim in the film, but they just have to go out of their way to somehow proclaim me as being 'unable to hold a job'? My current activities in life have no bearing on what I have to say about my experiences inside scientology."

Scientology: "And, at a time when religious hatred is spreading through the world and inciting violence, it is also irresponsible to release any film about religion with someone so obsessed with inciting hatred as Mike Rinder, an admitted liar and suborner of perjury, a paid anti-religionist and a domestic abuser.  http://www.freedommag.org/hbo/videos/mike-rinder.html"

Rinder: "Finally, why don't they address ANY of the statements I make in the film? Not one of them. Instead, they respond with ad hominem attacks. I will tell you why that is -- they CANNOT refute the truth. And they are bound by their own policy to 'always attack, never defend.'"

Scientology: "Mr. Miscavige has been successfully leading the Scientology religion for more than a quarter of a century during which the Scientology religion has expanded faster in the last 10 years than in its previous 50 years combined. Scientology parishioners worldwide hold him in the highest esteem for what he is doing for the religion."

Rinder has also included a post on his blog addressing the allegations Scientology has made against he and "Going Clear." 

This is not Gibney’s first time examining the alleged abuse of power. He was nominated for an Oscar exposing the corrupt acts by the heads of Enron (“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”), won one looking at US torture tactics ("Taxi to the Dark Side"), and has done films on the illegal methods done by “Casino Jack” Abramoff (“Casino Jack and the United States of Money”), the untruthful statements made by Lance Armstrong (“The Armstrong Lie”) and the questionable motives of Julian Assange (“We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks”), not to mention the illegal sexual conduct by the Catholic Church (“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God”).

With his history of examining infamous characters, how does Gibney see Miscavige?

“He’s a true believer who is doing everything he can to protect his religion,” Gibney told BI. “And in that way it may be even more terrifying because at some point you can sit someone down who is not a true believer and say ‘let’s do a risk/reward analysis.’ That’s not something he’d be willing to engage in.”

"Going Clear" opens theatrically in limited release today and airs on HBO March 29.

SEE ALSO: How a filmmaker finally infiltrated Scientology for HBO's explosive documentary

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Director Alex Gibney's explosive new documentary on Scientology, which opened theatrically in limited release on Friday and airs on HBO March 29, alleges many things the church is not happy about.

One of the allegations in "Going Clear" comes from former member, Mike Rinder, who, in an on-camera interview along with other former church members, discusses an area at one of the Scientology compounds supposedly called "The Hole," where disobedient members are allegedly sent as punishment.

In an email to Business Insider, the church denies such a place even exists:

"This is another tired, false and offensive allegation. The only 'hole' at the Church property being referred to is on the golf course. This again sources to the same small group of liars. This false propaganda was exposed as a lie in our video at freedommag.org/hbo/videos/exterminating-gibneys-propaganda.html."

Rinder, who is prominently featured in Gibney's film, even goes so far as to call Scientology's leader, David Miscavige, a "sociopath." 

The church didn't like that one, either, and in response slammed Rinder's character, calling him a "tainted source."

Rinder has since responded to BI to address the below comments from Scientology:

Scientology: "The source for these allegations, and Gibney’s primary subject, Mike Rinder, is talking about himself. Mr. Gibney and now yourself, due to prejudice and bias, have obliged in revising history for self-admitted suborners of perjury, perjurers and obstructers of justice."

Rinder: "I am no 'self-admitted suborner of perjury, perjuries and obstructer of justice' and I challenge them to produce whatever documents they say they have. This is a typical scientology sleaze. They claim [fellow former Scientology executive] Marty Rathbun admitted to doing this WHILE HE WAS EMPLOYED BY THE CHURCH and then ascribe it to me."

Scientology: "Mike Rinder admitted in a January deposition to the exact opposite of what he says to Mr. Gibney in the film and now to you."

Rinder: "No idea what they are referring to. And they don't cite the deposition or any specific statements that are 'the exact opposite.' Why not? They published portions of the deposition on their Freedom website? The entire transcript is available on Tony Ortega's site." 

Scientology: "He’s also a tainted source because he’s admitted to being paid by law firms seeking to score a payday suing the Church. You should know that just today the Church won a decisive victory in the case Rinder and his attorney clients had been hoping to hit the jackpot on."

Rinder: "Yes, I was hired as a consultant by several lawfirms. I testified in this deposition they refer to that it composed 10% of my income last year."

Scientology: "Rinder’s domestic abuse is documented by his ex-wife, brother, daughter and his ex-wife’s surgeon, and all of this would have been relevant to the film since Gibney shamelessly has Rinder lie about his ex-wife yet he didn’t ask her for comment or to sit for an interview, even when she was in New York to see him."

Rinder: "The alleged abuse is also documented by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and on BBC TV. It's covered in my blog. I didn't lie about my ex-wife. I didn't even MENTION that she came to Florida with 6 other people, followed me and assaulted me in the parking lot of a doctor's office. And the Sheriff's Office did NOT find any 'domestic abuse.'"

Scientology: "Alex Gibney and HBO cynically repackaged Mike Rinder into the poster boy for their new propaganda film. They flew Rinder around the country in five-star luxury to shill for their religious hatred, never mentioning that Rinder was expelled from his former religion for gross malfeasance. They hid that Mike Rinder can’t hold a job and his only source of income is payment for attacking Scientology. Gibney knew all this but relevant facts would have popped the phony bubble of legitimacy Gibney created around his 'star.'"

Rinder: "Funny, the same deposition they refer to, I told them EXACTYLY what I did for a living. And that only 10% of my income came from consulting law firms on scientology cases. Somehow that becomes 'can't hold a job' and 'my only source of income is payment for attacking scientology.' These people lie even when they don't need to. This isn't even relevant to any specific claim in the film, but they just have to go out of their way to somehow proclaim me as being 'unable to hold a job'? My current activities in life have no bearing on what I have to say about my experiences inside scientology."

Scientology: "And, at a time when religious hatred is spreading through the world and inciting violence, it is also irresponsible to release any film about religion with someone so obsessed with inciting hatred as Mike Rinder, an admitted liar and suborner of perjury, a paid anti-religionist and a domestic abuser.  http://www.freedommag.org/hbo/videos/mike-rinder.html"

Rinder: "Finally, why don't they address ANY of the statements I make in the film? Not one of them. Instead, they respond with ad hominem attacks. I will tell you why that is -- they CANNOT refute the truth. And they are bound by their own policy to 'always attack, never defend.'"

Scientology: "Mr. Miscavige has been successfully leading the Scientology religion for more than a quarter of a century during which the Scientology religion has expanded faster in the last 10 years than in its previous 50 years combined. Scientology parishioners worldwide hold him in the highest esteem for what he is doing for the religion."

Rinder has also included a post on his blog addressing the allegations Scientology has made against he and "Going Clear." 

The one frequent Scientology rumor the film does not address is the alleged disappearance of Shelly Miscavige, wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige, over nine years ago.

Gibney previously told us there just wasn't enough time in the film to cover the story.

"At the end of the day, rather than doing stone skipping and covering as much as possible in a superficial way we chose to dig in on certain things," explained the director. 

But the Church of Scientology is adamant that Shelly Miscavige's whereabouts are part of a "conspiracy theory" and that she is not, in fact, missing.

"The false allegation about Mrs. Miscavige was debunked by the Los Angeles Police Department in a statement two years ago. The police declared the rumor “unfounded” and she continues in the Church as she always has. The notion that Mrs. Miscavige is missing is a conspiracy theory among Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright's unsavory sources. The rumor has resulted in the disgraceful harassment of Mr. and Mrs. Miscavige. It is disgusting. The Church has made information available about Mr. Gibney’s film at www.freedommag.org/hbo."

HBO did not immediately reply to Business Insider's request for comment. 

SEE ALSO: Why Tom Cruise and John Travolta can't leave Scientology, according to the HBO documentary 'Going Clear'

MORE: The wife of Scientology's leader has allegedly been missing for 9 years, but HBO’s new documentary doesn't address it

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As Alex Gibney's documentary Going Clear opens around the country, the Church of Scientology is making its final stand against the film in the form of a five-page letter to The Hollywood Reporter.

The letter opens, "In two hours this film racks up more falsehoods, errors, embellished tales and blatant omissions than were committed by Rolling Stone, Brian Williams and Bill O'Reilly combined. By our calculation, the film on average includes at least one major error every two minutes."

The letter, which can be read here, attempts to rip apart Gibney's sources in the film with ad hominem attacks, describing one as a wife beater, one as a violent psychopath and yet another as a home wrecker, but fails to tackle any major revelation in the film. 

THR initially reached out to the Church to request a viewing of the documentary with top Church officials, but Church spokeswoman Karin Pouw declined this offer. Instead, she asked for a list of questions about the film, which she would "be happy" to answer, so that's what THR sent: a list of twenty questions regarding specific allegations in Gibney's work, such as the claim that L. Ron Hubbard once said starting a religion is the easiest way to make money.

Pouw's letter is the Church's blanket response to each of the film's claims, which include the following:

Hubbard was involved with the occult; Hubbard once kidnapped his own daughter; Hubbard founded Scientology as a way to bolster his declining book sales; Scientology's secretive Sea Org was founded by Hubbard as a ploy to remain beyond the reach of the IRS, which was investigating him for tax evasion; Hubbard wrote a letter in 1947 to the Veterans Administration (now the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) in the wake of his World War II service, seeking out psychiatric help; the Church pays its members between $.06-$.40 an hour for labor services; the Church buys up expensive real estate property simply to maintain its tax exempt status, which requires a large portion of its earnings to be spent for the benefit its congregation; the Church blackmailed John Travolta with private information to keep him from leaving the Church; the Church enacts a Draconian "Disconnection" policy, which mandates that Church members completely cut off anyone who leaves Scientology, including friends and family.  

Pouw's response letter, however, dismisses the questions: "The false allegations in Gibney's film are reflected in each of the questions you ask," Pouw writes. "Those questions bear no relationship to L. Ron Hubbard or to the Scientology religion. Rather than provide a response to each of these questions, which are part of Gibney's propaganda, I am going to take up the sources of these allegations so you understand their motivations to spread hatred, religious bigotry and lies. We are not trying to discredit these people. It is simply that Mr. Gibney ismiscrediting them."

In her letter, Kouw then refers THR to a series of videos the Church published about Alex Gibneyand the former Scientology members who appear in his film, including Spanky Taylor, Sara Goldberg, Hana Whitfield, Marty Rathbun, Mike Rinder and Marc Headley. The videos are titled as follows: "Mike Rinder: The Wife Beater,""Marty Rathbun: A Violent Psychopath,""Marc Headley: The Soulless Sellout,""Hana Whitfield: Can You Spare a Billion?""Sara Goldberg: The Home Wrecker" and "'Spanky' Taylor: The Drama Queen."

Kouw writes, "The inclusion of any of these liars is enough to irrevocably taint the film as biased propaganda. Including all of them is inexcusable." Kouw then rehashes the Church's previously-published allegations against each person, outing Goldberg's son for his alleged drug abuse, mocking Whitfield for an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Church and labeling Rathbun a cultist in his own right.

The letter concludes with an attack on Lawrence Wright, the author of Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, from which the documentary was adapted. "Lawrence Wright is obviously suffering from an acute case of jealousy of Mr. Hubbard," Pouw writes, "and thus has tried to slander him out of spite."

"Mr. Hubbard was a writer," Pouw continues, "one of the giants of the Golden Age of pulp fiction, during the Great Depression. He was also the author of 13 New York Times bestsellers in the 1980s. Indeed, his works are published to this day in 50 languages and have sold hundreds of millions of copies, something Wright could only wish to accomplish."

"Your readers should have the benefit of the information I have provided you."

Pouw also asked THR to include Scientology's previous statement about the HBO documentary, which can be found here. The statement says Gibney "refused to answer over a dozen letters from the Churchasking for an opportunity to address any allegations; he never even sent one fact to check and he shunned 25 people who traveled to New York to meet with him with relevant answers to every single allegation that is in the film."

In response, Gibney has said that he reached out for  interviews with key Church members, such as Church leader David Miscavige and Tom Cruise, but he was rebuffed.

The full letter to THR has been reproduced below:

SEE ALSO: How a filmmaker finally infiltrated Scientology for HBO's explosive documentary

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