We’re waking up to a lot of changes in Hollywood.
At the Golden Globes, where things couldn’t be worse, Diversity and Inclusion Advisor Dr. Shaun Harper gave up and left after the controversy over Phil Berk. Even though Berk was dismissed from the HFPA after his crazy racist email, Harper apparently felt he was getting nowhere. The group is supposed to make significant changes by May 6th. So far they’ve done nothing.
And others are reportedly jumping from the HFPA ship including Sunshine Sachs, their PR agency, and Judy Smith’s firm Smith & Company. She was the basis for the Olivia Pope character of a spin doctor in the TV series, “Scandal.” In the case of the former, if there ain’t no Sunshine for the HFPA they are really in trouble. After years of having wonky PR, Ken Sunshine gave the Globes an appearance of respectability.
Back here in New York, Scott Rudin’s comeuppance is snowballing. Variety reports that indie house A24 has severed ties with him. In the last few years, Rudin’s main movie deals have been with A24. This cuts him off from the Coen Brothers’ “MacBeth” with Frances McDormand and Denzel Washington, a prestige picture he was counting on riding to the Oscars next year.
Variety’s Gene Maddaus did a great job speaking to friends of the former Rudin assistant who killed himself last year, Kevin Graham-Caso. His brother had posted an emotional video about Kevin’s time with Rudin, but Maddaus got to the core of Rudin’s villainy. Rudin apparently pushed Kevin out of a moving car.
Meanwhile I can tell you exclusively that “ghost producers” are coming in to take over Rudin’s existing Broadway shows when they re-open this fall.
Once again, the Hollywood-Broadway table is being reset as scandal expunges power players. The kings are dead, long live the new kings.
