Producer Trashes Angelina Jolie and More From Leaked Sony Emails
Harsh words for Angelina Jolie in some leaked Sony emails
The trickle of leaks from the Sony hack continues. We’ve already seen the list of celebrity hotel aliases and learned of a thwarted plan for Spider-Man to make a cameo in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War. Now, courtesy of Gawker’s Defamer blog, comes one of the juiciest leaks yet: A vicious email exchange between A-list producer Scott Rudin and studio exec Amy Pascal about their planned Steve Jobs biopic. The months-long conversation (reprinted here) reveals how the film fell through the cracks to land at Universal in November. Over the course of the discussion, several big names are dragged through the mud, including Angelina Jolie — or as Rudin refers to her, “a minimally talented spoiled brat.”
Scott Rudin (center) at the Oscars with the Coen brothers in 2008
Not to be confused with the Ashton Kutcher film Jobs, the biopic in question was scripted by Aaron Sorkin and based on that Walter Isaacson biography everyone was reading two years ago. David Fincher was initially attached to direct, which makes sense, since he and Sorkin successfully collaborated on 2010’s The Social Network (also produced by Rudin). The leaked emails reveal that Angelina Jolie wanted to borrow Fincher from the Steve Jobs film in order to direct her version of Cleopatra. While Pascal tried to be diplomatic about Jolie’s request, Rudin was furious that Sony would take any time away from the Jobs biopic to focus on Cleopatra. His emails accuse Jolie of being a manipulator and a control freak who treats the film studio as “her fantasy toy box.” Wrote Rudin, “I’m not destroying my career over a minimally talented spoiled brat who thought nothing of shoving this off her plate for eighteen months so she could go direct a movie. I have no desire to be making a movie with her, or anybody, that she runs and that we don’t. She’s a camp event and a celebrity and that’s all and the last thing anybody needs is to make a giant bomb with her that any fool could see coming.”
Michael Fassbender in ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’; Fassbender was also the subject of some behind-the-scenes emails
The leaked Sony emails also contain discussion about who should play the coveted role of Steve Jobs, with Pascal and other studio executives discussing Christian Bale (initially reported as the star), Michael Fassbender (currently set to star), and Leonardo DiCaprio. A guilt-trippy email from one Hollywood agent to DiCaprio warned that he’d regret turning down the role, just like he regretted turning down Boogie Nights. Sorkin himself, in a leaked conversation reprinted by Ars Technica, advocated for Tom Cruise and against Fassbender. “I don’t know who Michael Fassbender is and the rest of the world isn’t going to care. This is insane,” wrote the screenwriter, though he later conceded that Fassbender would likely “get nominated for everything” if he starred. Rudin and Sorkin parted ways with Sony last month and are now developing the Steve Jobs film at Universal, with Danny Boyle directing.
In other news from the Sony hack, the Wall Street Journal reports that the next sequel to 21 Jump Street is being planned as a crossover with Men in Black. Chris Lord and Phil Miller, the team who directed both Jump Street movies and The Lego Movie, are set to produce the unlikely comedy, which will not involve original Men in Black stars Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones. Jonah Hill, however, is all in. “Jump street merging with mib i think that’s clean and rad and powerful,” the actor wrote to Pascal. This surprise mashup comes right after yesterday’s news that there was also a failed attempt to land a cameo from Sony’s Spider-Man in Marvel’s next Captain America movie.
Photo credit: Karwai Tang/Getty Images, Steve Granitz
