The movie that The Hollywood Reporter inaccurately described as a “bomb”– Dito Montiel‘s “The Son of No One”–is nearing a deal at Sundance.
I’ve heard that the Channing Tatum-Al Pacino-Katie Holmes police thriller should be sold, with announcement coming shortly.
Meantime, the Reporter’s Jay Fernandez–who wrote the story in THR–sent me an email today saying that no “smear” was involved and that THR’s Daniel Miller was in the screening room with me, Daily Mail journalist Baz Bamigboye, Harvey Weinstein, and about four dozen other buyers and journalists. Unattended? I don’t think so. I had to sit way in the back area of the press screening room because there were few seats available when I arrived.
But what Fernandez doesn’t get is that he wasn’t there, and we were. There was no “exodus” for the doors, no groans other noises indicating Holmes’s performance was no good, and that the room was full. In the email, he tells me, “The SONO screening didn’t go well.” Really? It went fine as far as we could tell.
But this is what’s happened to reporting in the age of the internet. And what Fernandez has done is turn Miller’s gossip into fact, and that nugget has spread like wildfire. That’s how a smear campaign begins.
Plus, Fernandez’s story also wrapped this item in with “The Kennedys” mini-series being dropped by the History Channel. This is to suggest that Holmes wrote and produced “The Kennedys,” and that her performance as Jackie Kennedy somehow killed the deal. How utterly ridiculous. Holmes is a minor player in the mini-series. She had nothing to do with its production. Like plenty of actresses before her, she simply played Jackie.
So that’s a smear, too.
“The Kennedys,” which few have seen, is poorly timed. This is the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy administration. This simply wasn’t the moment for a Kitty Kelly type treatment of the sex life of John Kennedy. To blame Katie Holmes for that is insane.
PS I’m adding this UPDATE: Pathetic Jay Fernandez of the Hollywood Reporter again is in error. I was not “let go” by the Hollywood Reporter. I had a contract with Nielsen Digital Media that ended on March 31, 2010. When the contract ended, I took this column and left THR. Get it straight, Jack.
