With the release of Inglourious Basterds and the return of Project Runway both happening this week, we probably should’ve expected another 5,000-word piece on the front page of yesterday’s “Sunday Business” pondering the dire state of the Weinstein Company’s finances. Making this one notable, however, was that Bob and Harvey actually submitted to interviews.
The pair told the Times’ David Segal that their string of recent failures was due mostly to Harvey’s being distracted with the non-movie parts of their business and that if TWC’s lineup of upcoming releases doesn’t include a couple blockbusters, then Harvey will be “making cheap hamburgers, or selling trailers, or refrigerators, or something.” Financial adviser Miller Buckfire & Co. has recommended that they release only ten movies per year, and a few months ago they took a $75 million bridge loan from Ziff Brothers.
Most troubling of all, though: Did you know Harvey is completely incapable of distinguishing between blonde actresses?
Talking to Kevin Smith, who is totally still upset with the Weinsteins over his low-grossing Zack and Miri (“They had impeccable taste when they were hungry,” he says. “The problem is that they’re not really hungry anymore. They’re starving and desperate”), Segal extracted this wonderful anecdote:
When the director Kevin Smith released Zack and Miri Make a Porno last year, he says, it was impossible to get Harvey to spend enough to promote the movie, which cost about $24 million to make. And Harvey seemed truly scattered at the time, Mr. Smith says. At the premiere, he introduced Mr. Smith to the actress Sarah Chalke, which was awkward because the woman was actually Traci Lords, a co-star of the movie. “The old Harvey would never have made those kinds of mistakes,” he says. “He just wasn’t as present, he wasn’t minding the farm, so to speak.”
Hilariously, a photographer was actually on hand to capture the blessed moment. (Doesn’t Kevin Smith looked pissed? Can’t you just see he’s thinking about telling this story to the New York Times in a year?) But that wasn’t the first time something like this happened — the old Harvey once made a similar mistake.
On a 2001 episode of Jon Favreau’s Dinner for Five (we can’t find it for free online, but it’s watchable on Amazon for $2), blonde actress Joey Lauren Adams told the story of her 1998 trip to the Golden Globes when she was nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy for Kevin Smith’s Miramax-produced Chasing Amy. Apparently, Harvey had wanted Drew Barrymore to play her role in Amy, so when Adams ran into him backstage, she was hoping he’d apologize. Instead, he mistook her for similarly blonde actress Renée Zellweger.
Now, certainly, confusing Adams for Zellweger is a mistake that could happen to anyone (since they do look pretty much the same). But maybe not on Golden Globes night to someone who produced the movie for which Adams was nominated. And how the heck did Harvey mix up Traci Lords and Sarah Chalke? Has Scrubs gotten way dirtier since we stopped watching? Does he even watch the Kevin Smith movies he’s producing? Or does he really have a problem distinguishing between blonde actresses? If it’s that last one, then we just thought of a way Tara Reid can still win an Oscar.
Weinsteins Struggle to Regain Their Touch [NYT]
Related: The Collapse of Harvey Weinstein’s Empire Is Goldman Sachs’s Fault
