Moguls, Monsters and Madmen, page 28
I interviewed Martin Scorsese in England and asked him about his rumoured production battles with Harvey. It was clear to me that Scorsese had a sort of chip implanted in his brain, which prevented him from going all out either to praise Harvey or condemn him. “Before Cinema Paradiso, audiences had an aversion to films with subtitles, but Harvey changed that,” he said. “When you take chances on subject matter, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Harvey has a touch of sensationalism, like a DeMille.” In 2004, Harvey and Scorsese worked together again on The Aviator, which had a much better reception and also received a Best Picture nomination.
With Chicago in 2002, Harvey acquired the hit he needed. The modestly budgeted musical became Miramax’s highest-grossing film and had a domestic box office of $171 million. It also won six Oscars, including one for Best Picture. With Chicago, it seemed that Harvey had dodged a bullet.
That same year, Harvey signed filmmaker Michael Moore, who had won an Oscar for his documentary, Bowling for Columbine, in which Moore blamed America’s culture of guns and violence for the mass killing spree at a Colorado high school and similar atrocities. Moore’s next film, Fahrenheit 9/11, shot under conditions of secrecy, was unsparing in its criticism of George W. Bush and the War on Terror. When CEO Michael Eisner refused to release it under the Disney label, Harvey bought it back. He released it in 2004 through Lionsgate Films, earning $100 million on a $6 million investment, and picking up a Palme d’Or in Cannes. The big question following this public fissure was this: would Disney renew the Weinstein brothers’ employment contracts, which ran out in 2005? On March 30, 2005, the corporation announced that it would not.
The Weinstein brothers were out of a job. Harvey ranted, “We have shelves full of Oscars, two billion dollars in assets and hundreds of millions in profits, and still Michael Eisner won’t renew?”
Five years later, Disney would close down Miramax, lay off eighty people and shelve many unreleased films. Despite a furious ten-month battle, Disney also refused to let the Weinsteins buy back the Miramax name and library. Disney had purchased it for $60 million; the Weinsteins offered $600 million; Disney accepted a rival bid for a reported $675 million. Like Lew Wasserman and Garth Drabinsky before him, Harvey learned the hard way: Don’t sell off your mother company and expect to remain in control.
The Weinsteins’ wings had been clipped, but they were far from being grounded. They partnered with Goldman Sachs and two other financiers to launch The Weinstein Company, with $500 million in equity and another $500 million in scrutinized debt. The company’s first two years were unimpressive. Instead of focusing on film, Harvey tried to be the next Rupert Murdoch, making investments in Internet, cable and fashion. That last purchase was personal. He had divorced his wife of eighteen years and was now married to English fashion designer and actress, Georgina Chapman. He then made sure his Oscar nominees wore his new wife’s creations.
By 2009, The Weinstein Company was in trouble. Of the seventy films the Weinsteins released in four years, 25 per cent failed to make $1 million at the box office, while thirteen took in less than $100,000. Kevin Smith, one of Harvey’s protege directors, commented that Harvey had impeccable taste when he was hungry, but had lost it, now that he was starving and desperate. Although Tarantino’s long-awaited Inglourious Basterds lost out to The Hurt Locker at the 2009 Academy Awards, it earned an outstanding worldwide gross of $313 million—a reprieve for the beleaguered Weinstein Company. In 2010, Harvey and Bob scored Best Picture for The King’s Speech, and in 2011 they repeated with The Artist. Though perhaps not the dominant force they once had been, the Weinsteins were back in business.
When, despite Harvey’s harassment, I finally had all the interviews I needed for the film, I brought in the same editor I had hired for The Last Mogul. This turned out to be a mistake: as I watched him work, I felt that he wasn’t unlocking the story properly. I was feeling frustrated when his young assistant confessed to me, “I’ve been secretly editing. Can I show you my cut?” Hers was terrific. I gave her the job.
Word began to circulate through the industry that I had a rough cut worth seeing. In September 2010, IFC Films, an influential NY-based distribution company, asked for a screening. They were enthusiastic. They offered me more money for a documentary than I had ever seen in a deal that included release through their own theatre and television network. Wow. Since they were in a hurry to get the deal done, I bought out my international contract with UK-based High Point Media so IFC could announce their acquisition. Neither I nor my lawyers stopped to ask, Why the rush? Hell, they even had me sign the contract on the hood of a stranger’s Ferrari in front of Yorkville’s Sassafraz restaurant.
With the deal in my pocket, I thought my only problem was to finish the film. Among other things, that meant hiring the right narrator. Like everything else involving Harvey, this proved to be more difficult than it should have been. My friend Peter Fonda was my first choice. “I’d love to do it,” he told me. Then his agent got involved, warning him, “Look, Peter, you make the same kind of movies Harvey does. Take this job and you won’t get hired.”
Next, I asked Tony-winning Frank Langella. We worked out a deal, then he told me, “Harvey nixed it.” Frank pulled out.
Christopher Plummer told me, “I live two houses away from Harvey in Connecticut. I’m not going to mess with him.”
Alan Alda refused as well. Same reason.
Canadian uber agent Perry Zimel recommended William Shatner. Then IFC chimed in, “He’s not the right voice for the film.”
After I thought about that, I agreed.
Finally, I settled on Albert Shultz, who runs Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company. He had narrated for me before, and he was fantastic.
So, back to the editing room. When IFC saw my rough cut, I was told, “Harvey objects to that Hickenlooper humping scene and he wants it cut.”
I was flabbergasted. “Why is Harvey calling the shots?”
“Well, Barry, IFC does business with Harvey. We buy his films.”
“But he’s not a partner in this film.”
“No, but IFC now owns the movie, and these are the changes we want to make.”
That was when I realized I had reached Act III in my negotiations with Harvey Weinstein, as my friend had predicted. True, Harvey hadn’t killed me, as my mother feared, but he had sucker-punched me. IFC was owned by the Dolan family, who owned Madison Square Gardens and Radio City Music Hall. The Dolans and Harvey were reputed to be close friends. Had Harvey instructed IFC to buy my film to control it? In the case of the Hickenlooper Factory Girl humping scene, I managed to save the anecdote by cutting Harvey’s instructions down from six humps to four.
I worried that my film was essentially dead. Those fears were briefly allayed in a heady IFC party following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, when IFC’s head of acquisitions told me Unauthorized would be entered into other key international festivals. This would be followed by a few high-end screenings in New York and Los Angeles before its mainstream launch. Great! Had my previous dealings with Harvey made me unnecessarily paranoid?
I flew to New York to speak to Jonathan Sehring, President of IFC Entertainment, about release dates. He said, “Barry, I have to tell you that Harvey sent a team to Toronto to see the film, and here’s his list of changes they want.” He took a sheaf of paper from his drawer. “If you aren’t going to trim the film, we will.”
So apparently I hadn’t been paranoid enough. Harvey had final cut.
We fought over every snip. I won a few battles but lost most. Unauthorized was in danger of becoming Authorized. When I continued to press for a distribution plan, I received a passionately articulated promise from Sehring about the importance of the film to them, and how they planned to use it to launch their new Netflix-like service. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Too soon.
Follow-up conference calls and meetings appeared to be vintage theatre designed to keep me distracted. For the next year, IFC broke promises on screenings and marketing campaigns, probably hoping I would go away. Then, after months of avoiding my calls, Sehring and his acquisition flunky nearly dropped their champagne glasses when they found me seated at a table next to them at the May 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Later, I ran into Weinstein himself on the terrace of the Hôtel du Cap. Typically, he was surrounded by stars: Jane Fonda, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. When Peggy Siegal, the go-to person for getting celebrities to parties, recognized me, she called out, “Barry, do you know Harvey Weinstein?”
Harvey said, “I understand you made a good movie about me.”
I responded, “My cut was way better.”
By now I was pretty sure IFC had bought my film in order to bury it. I wanted to buy it back, but my lawyer said, “That’s ludicrous. Walk away. Make another movie.”
I was losing every round. I rallied when the New York Times ran an online article in October 2011 asking, What happened to the Harvey Weinstein film? When questioned, IFC went on the record by saying the film would be released. On October 7, 2011, they played Unauthorized on their obscure download service, sundancenow.com, with zero publicity and marketing. You had to be a tracker dog with a keen nose to find it.
Even after this knock-down, I was still in the ring. IFC had refused to run my film in their New York theatre. I called up the director of Film Studies at New York University and asked, “How would you like to screen the Harvey Weinstein film that everyone’s talking about and that nobody has seen? I’ll come with great stories about the making of this film and show an uncensored cut.” He was enthusiastic. “I’d like to open the screening up to the public,” I told him, “so I’m taking an ad in the New York Times.”
He liked that even more.
As it turned out, of course, the Times refused my ad because they were afraid of pissing off Harvey. Harvey placed a lot of ads for his films in the Times. As he once reportedly bragged to the media, “I’m the fucking Sheriff of New York!” I called the Times editorial division and told them that their ad department had turned me down. I essentially embarrassed the Times into taking my ad after all. IFC was furious.
Good.
I invited key players from New York and L.A., intent on becoming an irritant if that’s what it took to get the film noticed. The NYU theatre was packed, and my panel did a great job for my moment of glory. Afterwards, I received a slew of emails and calls from insiders and luminaries, such as director Oliver Stone, who thought the film was amazing. Ron Meyer, chairman of Universal Studios, also called to say that it was a perfect follow-up to my earlier film on Wasserman.
The professional critics weren’t as kind. I had tried to create a well-balanced documentary for the general public. As usual, however, I attracted the asshole factor: Where’s the sleaze? Where’s the inside story that’s never before been told? Where’s the Michael Moore exposé?
I’m proud of the film. It was finally released intact in Canada in February 2011. We subsequently created a Mogul Box Set of my films including Unauthorized. I sent one to Weinstein.
Harvey keeps in touch. He answers my emails almost immediately. When I asked him for a copy of The Imitation Game to show for the Floating Film Festival in January 2015, he said, “Yes, but I’m going to need a favour in return.”
“Okay. What’s the favour?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Typical Harvey.
Chapter Twenty-One
AMERIKA IDOL:
A TRUE STORY
Zitiste, a village in Serbia, having endured 1,200 years of bad luck, dreamed of a better future. Its three thousand residents had seen floods and famine. They’d been trampled on by armies and exploited by warlords. The tribulations visited upon the village over the centuries were of nearly Biblical proportions. Even people in the rest of Serbia thought Zitiste had been cursed. Beautiful Belgrade was just fifty-five kilometres away, but no tourists came to Zitiste. The village, with its wheat fields, its horse carts and a complete absence of shops, was of another time.
The villagers decided they needed an extraordinary tourist attraction to reverse their luck. Disneyland Serbia wasn’t likely to happen and they had no money. What if they raised the statue of a public hero? Would tourists then flock to Zitiste?
Perhaps . . . but that would depend on the hero.
When the village elders examined their history and folklore, they found only warlords and politicians, such as the infamous former Serbian president, Slobodan Milošević. They considered looking beyond their borders to figures such as the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, but they decided those figures had been sufficiently celebrated elsewhere. What they needed was a larger-than-life hero who epitomized the spirit of their village.
Enthusiasm crystallized around one man—an underdog who picked himself up every time he was knocked down. A man who was ready to overcome every new obstacle placed in his path, just as Zitiste had always done. The mayor and the village council took a vote. Finally, Zitiste had its hero: Rocky Balboa.
Rocky, as surely everyone in the civilized world must know, was the boxing champion created by Sylvester Stallone for his Rocky film franchise. Surely Rocky, with all his courage and clout, would change Zitiste’s fortune. Surely, his statue would draw global recognition to their Field of Dreams. Create him, and the tourists will come. Right?
When Zitiste’s Friends of Rocky wrote to Sylvester Stallone asking for permission to raise a statue in his honour, they received no response. Undaunted, they wrote to A. Thomas Schomberg, designer of the famous bronze Rocky Balboa statue, with its upflung arms, that once stood at the top of the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As fans of the Rocky films know, when Balboa is training for his big fight in the first film, he does a victory run up those seventy-two steps to the triumphal strains of the big anthem, “Gonna Fly Now.” And, yes, Rocky had flung up his arms. Though the run was referenced in all of the Rocky films, the statue was created for Rocky III.
So iconic was this scene in popular imagination that as long as the statue remained at the top of the museum’s stairs, tourists ran up to have their pictures taken with it. The statue was featured in the torch relay preceding the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996. It was parodied in The Simpsons, when Lisa, sweatsuited like Rocky, ran up the steps when training for a spelling bee.
This mixed attention had created controversy among Philadelphians: “Why do we have a Hollywood prop on the steps of an art museum?” they asked. “Is it really art?”
The Rocky statue was shunted to the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. That is, until—power to the people!—a petition bearing 100,000 signatures caused it to be hauled back. Not to the top of the museum steps, but to a pedestal near the foot.
Not only did Rocky, the Hollywood champ, reflect Zitiste’s up-and-down history, the bronze statue did too. No wonder the Friends of Rocky Balboa in Zitiste were thrilled when the statue’s designer, Thomas Schomberg, endorsed their plan. Unfortunately, his suggested commission—$1.5 million—was beyond their resources. When the sculptor understood the villagers’ situation, he generously gave them the right to reproduce the statue themselves. Now—full steam ahead!—they hired a local Croatian artist, who planned to build it out of cement, coat it with shiny wax or varnish it to make it appear like bronze.
It was at this point that Melissa Coghlan, with whom I’d worked on dozens of films at Alliance, suggested that we make a film based on Zitiste’s Rocky project. She had read about it in the New York Times. I knew Melissa was keen to work in film, so I agreed. Why not?
Melissa Coghlan and Barry Avrich on the set of Amerika Idol in Serbia, 2007
from the personal collection
I decided to make a short, self-financed documentary, and since I was busy, I told Melissa, “I’ll direct it, but you’ll have to produce it.” That meant she had to line up everything.
The enterprising Melissa found a guy in Toronto who spoke Serbian. He contacted Zitiste’s Rocky Balboa Association. They gave us the go-ahead, and we flew to Belgrade aboard Air Serbia. On the flight, I noticed something peculiar. I asked Melissa, “Do you smell cigarette smoke?” She did. I called the steward to report what I thought to be an international infraction.
The steward replied, “Oh, it’s the pilot.”
The cockpit door was wide open, and, indeed, the pilot was having a cigarette.
Belgrade was beautiful, and so were some of its residents. It is noted as a site for scouting models. We spent the night at the fabulous Hyatt Regency, then the next day drove to Zitiste.
We were met by the mayor, the council and the head of the Rocky Balboa Association, whose membership included about seventy supporters. Everyone was excited. It was as if a big Hollywood film crew had flown in to take over their village.
That evening, the Zitiste Hunting Association hosted a feast for us at their forest lodge. Because almost nobody spoke English, I asked for an interpreter. Then, unable to resist, I began asking questions, such as, “How many Jews lived in this village?”
Though I later found the answer to be sixteen, my interpreter replied, “I’m not answering that.” The topic was verboten because of the Nazi-inspired events of World War II.
Then I asked, “What are we eating?”
My interpreter replied, “Bambi.”
I threw up in my mouth, then stuffed myself with cucumbers. After that, I was presented with the Rocky Balboa Award.
Melissa and I were to spend the night in Zitiste, and to begin filming the next day. We were taken to the village’s only motel, which was actually an old military barracks. My room contained a row of six military cots, a shower and a toilet—which, by the way, was located inside the shower. Melissa’s room had a TV but no signal. There was nothing to watch.
