Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Forget the postponement announced this morning by Harvey Weinstein and National Geographic that moved today’s premiere of Seal Team 6: The Raid On Osama Bin Laden to Thursday. The film’s playing in DC today after all, with one major change: the screening will be held at 6 PM at the Hay Adams Hotel (where Weinstein is staying, and which is a block away from the White House at 800 16th Street Northwest). Weinstein tells me that the Hurricane Sandy postponement left him feeling blue, and when the hotel manager asked why and learned of the scrapped screening, the manager offered up his 50-inch screen in a ballroom overlooking the White House and the Washington Monument, and Weinstein made a decision. “The show must go on,” he said. “We don’t want anybody to be unsafe, but if you’re just walking across the street or down the block, why not come? I see the lights on in the White House and I’m sure President Obama is working, but if he wants to take a 90-minute dinner break, he should come too. We’ll have food, and Senator Dodd is coming and so is Secretary of Housing Shaun Donovan. I’m extending a bipartisan invite. If you’re around, come and see the film.” He’s got a projectionist pal to run the movie, and his daughter and her friends are setting up tables. All of it is reminiscent of the Judy Garland movie Summer Stock, he said.

Weinstein said the plan to wait until Thursday is now on hold, because it looks like attendance will be pretty good. “Right now at least, it’s a bit windy, but only drizzling here,” he said. Weinstein also pledged that no matter how badly Hurricane Sandy plays out, he plans to be back in New York City for the John Stockwell-directed film’s premiere later in the week. “If I have to have my friend Daniel Day-Lewis pick me up in his canoe and we get there Hawkeye style, I am going to be there.”