The Little Shop of Horrors some distributors, including American International Pictures (AIP), felt that the film would be interpreted as anti-Semitic, citing the characters of Gravis Mushnick and Siddie Shiva. Welles, who is Jewish, stated that he gave his character a Turkish Jewish accent and mannerisms, and that he saw the humor of the film as playful, and felt there was no intent to defame any ethnic group. The film was finally released by its production company, The Filmgroup, nine months after it had been completed. "The Little Shop of Horrors" was screened out of competition at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. A year later,
Little Shop of Horrors (film) Muppets Take Manhattan" around the same time. Oz initially rejected it, but he later had an idea that got him into the cinematic aspect of the project, which he did not figure out before. Oz spent a month and a half to restructure the script which he felt was stage-bound. Geffen and Ashman liked what he had written and decided to go with what he did. Oz was also studying the Off-Broadway show and how it was thematically constructed, all in order to reconstruct it for a feature film. The film differs only slightly from the stage play. The title