Tell-Alls: Weinsteins and 48 HRS.
Just because the New York Post reports that someone who used to work at Miramax is writing a Weinstein tell-all does not mean it will ever see the light of day.
Much as I would love to read it.
But what goes up, must come down. Michael Eisner, Mike Ovitz, Joel Silver and the Weinsteins are not what they once were. Haze your way up in this business, and it's rougher on the downward slope. Your friends can become your enemies. And when things are rough, as they are now for the Weinsteins--many folks are asking how long Goldman Sachs will support their company's current scale and scope--all the knives come out.
People in Hollywood love to jump gleefully on a once-fierce competitor when they aren't so strong anymore. But the Weinsteins have many friends in New York politics and publishing, so we shall see.
The would-be Weinstein book author attached a seven-minute audio file to his pitch to Page Six:
The recording is of a Dec. 12, 1996, phone call between Harvey and Joe Roth, then president of Walt Disney Studios, in which the two complain about the $138 million severance deal that Mike Ovitz negotiated to leave Disney after 16 months."Please fire me," Weinstein facetiously tells Roth. "I'll split whatever I get . . . I'll meet you in St. Barts. We'll buy both halves of the island . . . If you don't fire me, then I think we should make bad movies next year. Let's make a series of [bleep]y movies."
Roth replies: "I obviously made a mistake. I made good movies." Harvey says, "Joe, you are a success, so therefore you are a failure in this town." The two then name Peter Guber, Michael Fuchs and Jon Peters as having won huge golden parachutes.
"Everybody got wealthy on failure," Weinstein says. Roth replies: "You know what the problem is with you and me? We care about the movies." Weinstein laughs: "We have character flaws that must be overcome."
Here's the podcast (in California, isn't it illegal to record someone without their knowledge?), which is amusing and I see their POV, actually:
Speaking of Joel Silver, he does not come off so well, nor does producer Larry Gordon (Hellboy2), in screenwriter Larry Gross's juicily candid memoir of working on Walter Hill's 1982 48 HRS., which helped to define the Hollywood buddy comedy genre for decades to come, and made Eddie Murphy into a star. MCN is publishing the pieces in serial form; part four is up now. It's a must-read, and I understand that it is making Silver and Gordon none too happy. The person who emerges smelling like a rose is director Hill, whose Broken Trail and Undisputed should put him back on the must-hire list. Hill can do comedy, tragedy, action, and subtle character work. But does Hollywood have work for someone who doesn't do tentpoles? That is the question.
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