EXCLUSIVE: Producer Scott Rudin announced to staff Friday that he will shutter his LA office at the end of the month. While Rudin’s decision was based on his desire to centralize his operation from his New York base, speculation has become heightened that he will soon end his studio production deal with Disney and make a new one with Sony Pictures very shortly. We’ll see how this plays out, but Rudin had been looking to close that LA office even before Disney sold Miramax Films, where Rudin made most of his films under the Disney deal.
Rudin this year became the rare producer with two Best Picture nominees in the same Oscar race with The Social Network and True Grit. He seems a natural fit for Sony Pictures and its topper Amy Pascal. Rudin is a filmmaker-driven producer who prizes literature as source material, and Pascal shares a similar sensibility. The studio has its first Best Picture nominee in years with The Social Network and other upcoming projects at the studio include Moneyball and Cleopatra, based on the Stacy Schiff book which will be turned into Angelina Jolie vehicle. This hands-on guy doesn’t let anything stray from his personal attention, and so the LA office closure makes. Indeed, all of the big pictures Rudin either has in production or is prepping were generated from New York. That includes Memphis, the Paul Greengrass-directed drama about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the David Fincher-directed Steve Zaillian-scripted The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy The Dictator, the Wes Anderson-directed Moonrise Kingdom and the Noah Baumbach-directed While We’re Young.
There are four shows he’ll open on Broadway this season — the House of Blue Leaves revival to star Ben Stiller and Edie Falco, Motherfucker With the Hat with Chris Rock, Book of Mormon with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and the Olivier Award-winning Jerusalem. And he’s already started lining up next season with a revival of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth to star Nicole Kidman and James Franco next fall. Rudin also made an HBO deal for a pilot about the TV cable news world that re-teams him with Oscar-nominated The Social Network scribe Aaron Sorkin. The best way to manage all this is for it all to be under one roof.
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Scott rudin, great producer, might be tough but that’s his strength and what makes him different and great and achieves results.
I went to law school and worked on Wall Street, so I know both of those worlds well. And I believe both of those industries pale in comparison to Hollywood. And the NFL… hey I love football as much as the next guy (even played in college) but with the NFL you are only competing on a national level. With Hollywood you are competing with people all over the world. Hollywood is the Olympics of filmmaking. No other industry is tougher. Period. The only thing that might be tougher that was mentioned above is being an astronaut. I’ll give you that one.
Charley. For real? I 100% agree that Hollywood is the major leagues but all you Rudinites and your cocky badge of honor act need to come back down to Earth before you give the astronauts a run for their money. Has he produced good films, some of them memorable? Yes. But the guy is a major league ass and the cloying idol worship his alumni propogate in this town is insufferable. In the end, he didn’t have to be such a dick. All sound and fury signifying nothing…except simple, blatant human disrespect. Let’s hear your thoughts on Pol Pot while you’re at it.
I mean why wouldn’t disney just keep the miramax label for prestige films
Howler, I worked as an assistant in the New York office. And you know what I think of your comment? Grow a pair. Either you can cut it or you can’t. This is the most competitive business in the world. If you can take a little yelling then go do something else.
Hollywood is more competitve than the NFL? You’re a douchebag.
My favorite post EVER!
All other details aside…the most competitive business in the world? You flatter yourself darling. From basketball to cycling, from astronauts to soldiers, from businesses I don’t know about ton ones I can’t even imagine. This is just another one. And many of them are just as competitive, and more so. Howler shouldngrow a pair? Maybe. And you should grow up.
Good for Scott and Amy P. He will do great things at Columbia! This town needs more producers like him.
Disney should have used his talents more. Rudin knows quality filmmaking.
It was common knowledge that the deal was moving to Sony, not least because they haven’t actually made any films at Disney. But I was in the LA office earlier in the week and there was talk of a move but not to the East Coast. So I don’t know if this is really just Rudin closing down the Disney-backed operation in preparation for the move. I find it really hard to believe he wouldn’t keep a presence in LA, especially when he has a class act like Bernardi and an impending deal at Sony.
“Rudin is a filmmaker-driven producer who prizes literature as source material, and Pascal shares a similar sensibility.”
That’s why Sony puts out so much shit, right?
Rudin is a class act with great taste. But he also buys up a lot of properties that never see the light of day, and might fare better with a producer who can approach them with more single minded devotion. Caleb Carr’s The Alienist? Still on the shelf. Both of the recent and great Jonathan Franzen novels? Going nowhere fast. (The latter should be six to eight hour mini series anyway.)
If not for the fact that Scott Rudin abuses his assistants on a level so morally reprehensible – read the New York Observer for the proverbial blow by blow – I would love him too. Hardly a class act. But its great so many actors and writers and execs working with him remain so indifferent to his torture of others… that’s Hollywood, industry of enablers…
I had the pleasure of interviewing for a reader’s job at his offices once. Suddenly, from the other room I heard a madman screaming at the top of his lungs. I actually thought some lunatic had broken into the offices, and feared for my life. Then I learned it was Rudin. Unacceptable; I don’t care how f’n brilliant you are.
He was very kind to me, very calm and relaxed, and I didn’t hear any yelling in the hour I was at his LA office. Can’t speak to what others say but he was very cool in my book.
He’s probably going to end up in the Poitier Building over there. As Nikki alluded to, you could kind of see this coming when he was making so many films for Sony. Disney is losing a major talent.
Disney don’t care as they currently have no use for the kinds of films Rudin makes. Sad to say.
He´s one of the chosen few. A mountain in the desert. A class act to follow.
Is Bernardi going with him???
Rudin is a class act. If you love stories in film and not just action sequences with CGI and car crashes, you are indebted in Mr. Rudin. He has kept movie making alive at the highest level of creativity. The more he produces the better off society is!
The industries so called insiders may hate him or love him, but they can not dispute his lifetime of achievements. And it aint over yet. Thanks Mr. Rudin, I for one can slide into the movie house alone and have the most enjoyable two hours with someone I never met. 2030BTD
Will Cleopatra shoot this year ?