The long, twisted saga of Relativity Media, a studio with no hits and lots red tape, came to a climax this week. Reportedly out of the building are Ryan Kavanaugh, the controversial exec who started Relativity, and Dana Brunetti, Kevin Spacey’s former partner who arrived earlier this year to help Kavanaugh steer the ship.
Social media may have done these hard charging, outspoken lone rangers in.
Last week, while Relativity was sinking, Brunetti posted this to Instagram. It was a photo of a private plane with this caption: “Taking a group of strangers on the Relativity Jet to Cabo for a few days.” A friend responded: “You’re like Santa. With Ferrari’s. And rare firearms.”
Relativity, already bankrupt and bleeding, hasn’t had a hit in a long time. Their “Masterminds” made $17 million. “The Disappearance Room” made just over $2 million. That was all they were allowed to release in 2016. Their four 2015 releases made a total of $74 million. “Shut In,” released by EuropaCorp, made around $6.8 million bucks. EuropaCorp entered into a deal in 2014 with foundering Relativity to release movies through the American company using their marketing and PR tools. They’ve released four movies that way this year, with a total of $46 million. It’s mess.
While Brunetti may have shot himself in the foot with the plane Tweet, Kavanaugh has not been making friends with the Europa Corp team. In October, the fervent author of anti-Hillary Clinton Tweets, coughed up this fur ball about a EuropaCorp exec:
#MastermindsFilm goodweekend hold Big $$. Will do well on digital and HV. TommyG did even worse onNineLives4Europa, shouldve fired himb4.
— Ryan Kavanaugh (@RyanKavanaugh) October 9, 2016
Relativity has now put all its employees on holiday furlough– unpaid two weeks of non-employment, returning January 3rd to who knows what…
