The New York State Supreme Court this month is hearing testimony as it decides if the Weinstein Co. violated a contract by not giving NBC Universal a chance to hold onto Project Runway, which is slated to move from Bravo to Lifetime in November. Remember, NBC U boss Jeff Zucker famously met with Harvey Weinstein on Feb. 22 to discuss the show's fate, when all the while Weinstein had already inked a $20 million-plus deal to give Heidi et al a new, bigger home.Some of the juicy bits disclosed during the court sessions, as reported by the New York Daily News:• Weinstein testified that NBC U paid Tim Gunn nothing during the first season of the show, and a mere $2,500 an episode for Season 2. • Zucker, when questioned about an email he sent directing Bravo to aggressively counterprogram Lifetime's Runway with repeats of previous cycles, shrugged, "I'm a competitive guy." • Weinstein admitted he "disliked Bravo management," though sources tell the tab that "hated" is a more...
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When Harvey Weinstein and Co. surprised Bravo by snipping its ties with the net and taking their fierce reality hit Project Runway to Lifetime for its sixth season, we figured things would get ugly. Yesterday in New York State Supreme Court, Weinstein and Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal (Bravo's parent company) proved us right by exchanging harsh words and accusations.According to a story in Ad Week, Zucker says Weinstein promised him the right of first refusal, a chance to match an offer from another net. Weinstein vehemently denied this, saying, "I'd rather cut off my arm than give them a right of first refusal." Zucker testified that that there had also been discussions about possibly moving the show from Bravo to USA or even NBC, but Weinstein said that "They kicked me out in 10 minutes" when it came time to talk about such a move.What a fashionably ferocious war of words. One thing's for sure — neither side is likely to mend this torn relationship anytime soon. ...
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Harvey Weinstein is producing the film adaptation of Paolo Coelhos The Alchemist which begins production in the next several weeksLaurence Fishburne is also on board as a producer as well as director and the films starThe movies budget is estimated at 60 million The rights to the project were originally sold to Warner Brothers in 1994 for 250000 but it sat on the shelf for several years Fishburne himself eventually acquired the rights along with indie production house A-Mark Entertainment JR Whalen
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Question: When a film wins for best picture at the Academy Awards, who gets to take home the Oscar? Does each of the executive producers get to take one home or is there just a single statue that they all have to share? I've wondered this for many years, and I figured it was finally time to end my silence!
Answer: This is a very timely question, and one with implications beyond how many Oscar statuettes the Academy has to have made for various best-picture winners. First, the award does go to the producer or producers, not to the director — the auteur-vision thing notwithstanding — or to the executive producer(s). For some years now, there's been concern among the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences about what's been dubbed "credit creep," and specifically the proliferation in recent years of credited producers, coproducers, executive producers, coexecutive producers and associate producers, and there's been a
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