Olivia Munn blew the whistle on the involvement of a registered sex offender in her new film The Predator, and 20th Century Fox had his sole scene cut from the new film. But costar Jake Busey seems to believe the news could have waited until after the movie’s release.
“I think the timing could have been handled better,” the 47-year-old told Us Weekly at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights on Friday, September 14. “I think it could’ve been done like a month from now, and let the studio and the director have their night of the release and the movie and not destroy the movie over a discovery that was made a year after filming — and 10 years after the incident. I think the timing could have been better. The director was in tears at the red carpet which is not really the way you want it to be. But it’s done, it’s put to bed.”
The registered sex offender, Steven Wilder Striegel, pleaded guilty in 2010 after being accused of trying to lure a 14-year-old female into a sexual relationship over the internet. Munn, 38, found out about her scene partner’s criminal past and alerted the studio.
The Predator director Shane Black then apologized for casting Striegel, a longtime pal of his. “I personally chose to help a friend,” Black wrote in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “I can understand others might disapprove, as his conviction was on a sensitive charge and not to be taken lightly.”
Addressing the controversy, Busey told Us he thinks “some good came out of it,” especially because the Jane Doe came forward to identify herself as 24-year-old Paige Carnes in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.
“The fact that it was brought to light and gave her the confidence to come forward and not just be Jane Doe anymore and the confidence to have closure with it and move on and feel vindicated,” he told Us.
The Stranger Things actor continued, “Paige has closure, and now we’ve all learned that studios probably need to do forensic background checks on people in the future so that we don’t have to worry about having sex offenders on the set while we are working because it’s a vulnerable place. Girls are naked some of the times with love scenes … I think that this is gonna change the way studios cast people … The predator was outed for The Predator.”
