Harvey Weinstein Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

(Updated with LA DA response) As expected, Harvey Weinstein’s defense team have moved to ask for a new West Coast trial for the incarnated producer. In a risky move, the Oscar winner’s Werkman Jackson & Quinn attorneys are putting the credibility of Jane Doe #1 and the LA County District Attorney’s office at the heart of their attack

EXCLUSIVE: After a fierce bidding battle that followed the rousing premiere Sunday Sundance premiere, Apple is closing a deal for Flora and Son, the John Carney-directed film that stars Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Oren Kinlan and Jack Reynor. Streamers Apple, Amazon battled to the end, and Netflix and Searchlight were all in the mix. Haven’t got a final number yet, but the bidding landed in the vicinity of just under the $20M Netflix paid for Fair Play, I’m told.

Working at the opposite end of the spectrum to Baz Luhrmann, Ireland’s John Carney seems content to make low-key, localized musicals that are almost custom-sized for Sundance. True, some fingers were burned when, perhaps emboldened by the slow-burn success of 2007’s Once, he hired a big star (Keira Knightley), filmed in New York, and endured the full horror of a hands-on Harvey Weinstein release for the bigger-budgeted follow-up, Begin Again, in 2013. After whatever went down on that film, however, he returned to Ireland with a bunch of largely unknown actors for his next and arguably best so far: Sing Street (2016), an underrated romantic comedy about a young man (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) trying to find his identity through his love of music.

Time’s Up is halting operations and shifting its resources to its legal fund. The organization confirmed they were shutting down via their official website and directed survivors of workplace sexual harassment or violence to their legal defense fund site.

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.

UPDATE, 11:25 AM: Found guilty of multiple sex crimes last month by a Los Angeles jury, Harvey Weinstein will learn his  incarceration fate next week.

The L.A. jury that on Monday convicted Harvey Weinstein of three out of seven felony counts in his rape trial on Tuesday resumed deliberations on aggravating factors that could lengthen the disgraced mogul’s prison sentence.The jury is weighing whether Weinstein carried out the rape of Jane Doe 1 with planning, sophistication  or professionalism, and whether Jane Doe 1 was particularly vulnerable.

Harvey Weinstein is a “serial predator” and rapist said Jennifer Siebel Newsom today after a Los Angeles jury was unable to come to a unanimous verdict on the much-accused producer’s guilt in allegedly attacking her back in 2005.

(Updated with LA County DA statement) Harvey Weinstein has been found partially guilty of multiple sex crimes today by a Los Angeles jury.

Hollywood Commission chairperson Anita Hill responded today to the conviction of Harvey Weinstein on three sex crime charges by a Los Angeles jury that could mean a sentence of 18 to 24 years behind bars for the Oscar-winning producer. Many of Weinstein’s accusers have said they were lured to hotel-room meetings that they thought were business-related, but turned out to be predicates for assault.

Harvey Weinstein was found guilty on three charges of rape and assault after his second sexual assault trial, a jury determined on Monday, December 19.

In She Said, Maria Schrader’s telling of the Harvey Weinstein take-down by New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, we see the birth of a historic moment: The turning of #MeToo from a movement into an unstoppable train of change. Based on Kantor and Twohey’s book, and from a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the reporters painstakingly gather evidence from silenced survivors, many of whom consulted on, and in some cases starred in, the film. For Zoe Kazan, alongside Carey Mulligan as Twohey, playing Kantor meant understanding her humanity, the practical nuts and bolts of reporting life, and the weight of what it is to bring others’ devastating personal truths to light. In conversation with Antonia Blyth, Kazan and Kantor discuss the portrayal of women at work to change the world.

Harvey Weinstein’s fate is now in the hands of the jury.

“Regret is not the same thing as rape, and it’s important we make that distinction in this courtroom,” Harvey Weinstein’s defense attorney Alan Jackson said Thursday of Jennifer Siebel Newsom during his closing argument in the much-accused Weinstein’s Los Angeles sex crime trial.

Tom McCarthy is a very clever writer who has succeeded in drawing audiences to a difficult genre: thrillers about newspapers. He won an Original Screenplay Oscar for Spotlight, made in 2015, was a riveting movie about how the Boston Globe exposed a cover-up involving a defrocked priest. His new ABC series Alaska Daily focuses on a hot New York journalist (Hilary Swank) who is exiled into covering crime in Anchorage.

Today’s launch of Harvey Weinstein exposé movie She Said has given a shot in the arm to a UK campaign to stop the misuse of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).

Quentin Tarantino’s second book, Cinema Speculation, is as hard to put down as his “novelization” of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. His film education began at age 7, when he quickly warmed to the violent R-rated movies he makes today. Now, the mission for this interview was not to get Tarantino to rehash controversies for soundbites — like answering yet again what he wished he could have done to stop Harvey Weinstein’s predatory path or talking about his next film (he seems to be wistful about continuing Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth character, but maybe that is my own wish after reading how the character was fleshed out in that novelization, which makes you understand everything about his match with Bruce Lee and so much more). Tarantino’s also keeping his multi-ep TV series plan quiet, the one he dropped on Elvis Mitchell. He did say he would only ever shoot one if it can be done on film. This interview is for Tarantino’s hardcore fans, a primer to his book and a glimpse into how he became the filmmaker he did.

She Said tells the heroic story of the New York Times journalists that brought the #MeToo movement to the forefront by exposing Harvey Weinstein and the system that enabled him to thrive as a sexual predator. The film, which opened in theaters this weekend, stars Zoe Kazan as Jodi Kantor and Carey Mulligan as Megan Twohey, the Woodward and Bernstein of the 21st century.

Quentin Tarantino made nine films with Harvey Weinstein. Looking back, he claims he didn’t get the entire picture of his wrongdoings.

EXCLUSIVE: Searchlight’s absurdist genre comedy The Menu got off to a promising start with $1M+ in Thursday night previews, we hear. That number is up there with recent comps such as Barbarian, which did $850K on its Thursday night before a $10.5M opening, and The Northman, another Anya Taylor-Joy movie, which posted $1.35M before a $12.2M start.

A very vibrant runway leading into Thanksgiving for sure for movie theaters as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is headed for a second weekend down around -60% for $70M-$72M. Through five days, the Ryan Coogler-directed Disney and Marvel Studios sequel has amassed $204.8M with Tuesday earning $12.4M, the third best Tuesday of November after Frozen 2 ($20.8M, Nov. 26, 2019) and Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($15.96M, Nov. 26, 2013).

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says it is reviewing the status of Paul Haggis’ membership after a civil trial that resulted in the director being ordered to pay $7.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages. “The Academy will address this matter according to our Standards of Conduct and the due process requirements under California nonprofit corporation law,” the organization said in a news release.

Prosecutors in Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angeles rape trial said Tuesday that they have decided not to move forward with four counts relating to Jane Doe #5. It means the producer now faces seven counts against the four remaining Jane Does: two counts of rape and five counts of sexual assault.

“He was really focused on telling me I was special, and I was different,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom told a downtown Los Angeles jury today of her first meeting with Harvey Weinstein.

Zoe Kazan recalls her research for playing New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor in the film She Said taking on a “mimetic quality” as the real-life similarities accumulated.

It’s that time again, when Deadline decamps to New York City to bring you the latest installment of our Contenders Film series, with the lowdown on some of our favorite Oscar-season possibilities.

One of Harvey Weinstein’s former personal assistants, who was mentioned prominently in accuser Ashley M.’s testimony, took the witness stand today in the disgraced former mogul’s sexual assault trial in Los Angeles, saying she has “no recollection of meeting [Ashley M.] in Puerto Rico.”

Harvey Weinstein’s trial on rape allegations entered its second week with some discussion of how quickly the proceedings are moving.