Sorry to say, but that sounds like a load of misinformation from OP.
1) Brad Pitt had purchased multiple gold 523's prior to the movie for use in the film. The director decided against Brad's judgement and went with the silver frame that we all know today.
I've never heard this before, and it's something that probably would have come up in the last 15 years. A few things strike me as odd; Brad wouldn't be in charge of purchasing multiple anything for the film's wardrobe. Nor would he on his own accord. If he had something from his personal collection he really liked, like the aero 54, OK then maybe they might use it. Even then Kaplan would send someone else out from the dept. to buy or make multiples of it. And unless Fincher really had a major problem with gold over silver, it would be Kaplan's choice, not the director's. Sounds to me like they are just trying to get rid of gold frames or build some kind of interest for them by saying Brad Pitt owned a pair even though nobody wants them.
2) The lens color for the movie has a specific name. Kinison Red named after Sam Kinison the comedian. He wore this color during the late 80's and early 90's in his sunglasses. (Note the 523 frame wasn't made till like 1995) -- In fact, he was wearing this color in his Oliver Peoples M4 when he died. Either Kaplan or Fincher saw photos of Kinison and went with this red.
I don't believe that for a second. Multiple inquiries have been made by dozens if not hundreds of people asking about the red color to official OP reps, and even some of OP's people who were around and involved when the film was made (most don't work there anymore) and in almost 15 years Sam Kinison's name has never come up. Even if it were a similar red color to these mysterious red shades Kinison wore (of which I can find no photos), I'm convinced there is no
official name for the color.
3) All of the 523's on ebay that they have seen are either owned by collectors, vintage, and or used. They stated none of these were brand new just made 523's. Which leads to my next finding:
They would have no way of knowing if they were brand new or not just by looking at other people's listings on ebay. All I can say is I've seen plenty of mint condition 523's over the past few years. I've deduced they are coming direct out of Japan and it would seem they have been for years.
4) They haven't made any 523's since the re-release in 2009 and this includes the Japan TI stock. There have been a few old stock 523's leftover in fact the Sunset BLVD location has 2 523's left one silver and one gold the 2009 version. If you want them here is your chance.
Again, these have been highly sought after since the film's release. If there were any new old stock left in OP's archives, don't you think they would have been sold long ago when they were getting a hundred phone calls a day from people asking for them? For a time, yes maybe they were rare, like from 1999-2008, but the numbers alone on ebay show there has been a steady stream of mint condition 523 selling at an average rate of 30-40 a year for the past 5-6 years. And that is just one of many outlets. All I'm saying is, draw your own conclusions.
5) Due to the popularity the person I was in contact with checked all known archives for old stock those two above were the ones she found with the exception of a brand new 1998 Oliver Peoples 523 in the Kinison red intended for the movie. This was owned by the owner of Oliver Peoples himself. I now own these and I can tell compared to my other 523 1998s these are definitely new and compared to my 2009 523's which is also brand new.
Is the Red the same color lens as your "screen used" red lenses?
6) Oliver Peoples contacted me again the other day because they were intending to do another re-release of the 523's including trying to redo the 1998 version. They got in touch with the original designer but ran into a problem. The factory where 523 sunglasses produced which was in Japan is no longer in existence. It no longer makes any eye glasses or anything of that nature.
If that is true, then it's more than likely the machines and jigs used to produce the OP-523 model, (and the Sunset model for that matter) are under the control of another entity. All they need is the software file for those models. That could be the source where these new OP-523's are coming from.
they now have no way of making more 523's because the original designer is gone.
This doesn't even make any sense. Not having access to the original designer has no effect on the production of this model. OP still own's the proprietary rights the the software files that were created back in 1998 from any of it's designers. I would have a very hard time believing that they lost it. They can be easily reproduced. It's a conscious
choice not to officially release them for whatever reason that may be.
Cool vid showing how frames are made:
