Inside The Asshole's Studio

So despite the fact that studio head Harvey Weinstein and producer Scott Rudin are basically the same person (and possibly Len Grossman), they’re in the middle of a big fight. At issue is The Reader, a movie Billy Elliot director Steven Daldry did for The Weinstein Company. The film was first delayed 8 weeks by Nicole Kidman’s pregnancy, then faced another, even sexier delay when they had to wait for one of the actors to turn 18 so she could shoot a sex scene. Even though it started shooting four months behind schedule, Harvey still wanted it finished in time for awards season (deadline is in November), despite that the director, who officially had creative control, said that was basically impossible. Rudin, who backed the director, claims Weinstein explored a number of sleazy options for forcing him to finish earlier, including claiming recently deceased producers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella “would have wanted” the movie finished in 2008 (I use that strategy with chicks all the time). But this is all backstory. You can get the full rundown here.

Today’s news is that Weinstein offered to give $1 million to charity if someone could produce the supposed email in which Rudin accused him of mistreating Anthony Minghella’s and Sydney Pollack’s families. It seems a charity is in luck, because Nikki Finke just published it:

[From Scott Rudin, who apparently writes just like Variety] Also HW [Harvey Weinstein] went to Minghella’s widow and tried to insert himself into Mirage’s editorial rights so as to insist the film be released this year – which Sydney stopped just before he died. [Harvey] Harrassed Sydney on his deathbed until the family asked him to stop because he wanted Sydney to warrant that we would deliver for release this year.

Adds Finke: As for Scott Rudin, he confirmed to me Monday night that it is his email and claimed that Weinstein’s people pestered him “to protect Harvey and deny the email and lie to Page Six” — so he said he did “in order to keep peace for the next weeks that the two of us still have to work together on The Reader.”

Phew! So there you have it. Jerks.