SCRANTON -- "The Trouble With Cali" is "dead."
That's the word from actor/director Paul Sorvino about the film he made, shot in a place he says he loves: Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"It's dead. There's no way to sell it anymore. I've tried everywhere," he told WILK Radio Wednesday.
Sorvino used half a million dollars in money from Lackawanna County to make the film. It is money he now says he cannot pay back.
This week, Sorvino called in to local radio station WILK and spoke with host Steve Corbett, blaming him and others in the area for hurting the project.
"You're to blame. Your comrades in the fourth estate are to blame. The newspaper guys who wrote disparaging reviews, disparaging comments, and all the rest of it have made it so the picture is now unsellable, as good as it is. You've killed it," said Sorvino.
Pat O'Malley is a Lackawanna County Commissioner. He was not in office when the half million was paid to Sorvino.
"He can say whatever he wants: that there was bad public relations in the area, that the paper was talking about him, and the radio shows were talking about him. If the film was great, it would have made a lot of money, but it didn't," said Commissioner O'Malley.
Newswatch 16 spoke with a lot of people about Paul Sorvino. Most of them did not want to speak on camera, but all of them had the same thing to say: they think he should pay back the money.
"I don't think it's right. I think it's wrong that he does that to tell you truthfully," said Patty Taylor of Scranton.
"I think it's terrible to be honest with you. I think Mr. Sorvino is a crook and he should be ashamed of himself to be honest with you," agreed Butch Johnson of Scranton.