There aren't a lot of wheels left to fly off at the Weinstein Company, where as many as five executives are now expected to have made their exits by the end of the year. Add on the news that its previous Oscar hopeful The Road is officially shelved until 2009 while Bob Weinstein reportedly invests upward of $60 million in straight-to DVD releases for next year (a market he badmouthed as recently as last week), and your Weinstein DeathWatch countdown may have just acquired new, accelerated momentum. Watch the casualties mount after the jump.Today's Hollywood Reporter notes that TWC's bosses of acquisition and production Michelle Krumm and Maeva Gatineau left through the back door at the beginning of October, while production execs Michael Cole and Carla Gardini will follow with marketing VP Gary Faber in short order. All were Miramax veterans at the end of their first contracts with TWC. Harvey says he intends to replace them, and with Inglourious Basterds [sic] currently shooting in Germany and Rob Marshall's musical Nine on the way soon after, face-value presumes to believe him. But we'd much sooner believe he'd sell the operation for parts — Basterds, Nine, the just-shelved Forest Whitaker drama Hurricane Season, Fanboys, Shanghai and anything else Fox Searchlight, Focus Features, Flopz™ or another willing suitor can squeeze into a shopping cart on a 60-second spree through the storage locker. (Sorry, though, Lifetime — you still can't have Project Runway.) Even if The Reader can surmount its rush-job ego drama to make a legit awards-season run, whatever prestige accompanies it will wind up attributed to everybody but poor Harvey. It's almost pitiable. Almost. In the end, the Weinstein brothers' public incompetence is really too willful to lament and too insistent to shock. Take today's Variety item, for example, in which Bob Weinstein, whose genre arm Dimension has itself survived without a production president since buying out Richard Saperstein last year, announced a greenlight for 18 titles to be produced this fall and released to straight to the Dimension Extreme DVD label in 2009. (This coming the same day Dimension shelved its Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road indefinitely.) They're all franchise installments or remakes — Pulse 2, Midnight Man 2 and 3, Children of the Corn, Chapter XXIV, etc. — budgeted between $3 million and $6 million. “Having learned how profitable a video library is and having already found great success launching franchises on video, this was a natural and obvious progression,” Bob told the trade. Contrast that with his appearance sitting in for Harvey last week at Nielsen's Media and Money conference, where the Reporter cited his bearishness toward a "dwindling DVD market" and the vague hope that he might be lucky enough to exploit that library — not $75 million in new productions — through VOD and Web downloads. Is the Weinsteins' output deal with Showtime richer than we thought? And with almost as many empty desks as delayed titles left in the office, who is selling these films? How are they even getting made? That said, Zack and Miri Make a Porno will probably open in the Top 3 next week with little more than stick figures on its poster and morbidly obese Kevin Smith regaling America with his stories of broken toilets, so what do we know? As you were, Harvey, we guess.

Goodness, the bad news just doesn't stop for Harvey Weinstein. The movie mogul and Weinstein Co. head—who recently lost his bid to move Project Runway, his big moneymaker, to Lifetime—has had a rough time lately, dealing with everything from a flagging fashion line to a flagging internet company to a flagging video distribution service. So much flagging! And now the precarious nature of Weinstein's business is clear to everybody; his own executives are abandoning him, in a terrible job market:

♦ Bill O'Reilly has signed a new four-year contract with Fox News worth $10-12 million a year. There is good news, though: His radio show may be coming to an end. [NYDN]
♦ More bad news for Harvey Weinstein: A handful of senior execs at The Weinstein Co. have announced their departures. [THR]
♦ How are monthly business magazines keeping up with the financial crisis? They're not, really. [NYO]
♦ The offices of the New York Times received an envelope this morning containing a "white granular substance." [Radar]

♦ Did you expect Anne Slowey to play down the reported feud between herself and Nina Garcia? Au contraire: "I'm not even really conscious of the fact that, oh yeah, she used to work at Elle," bitches Slowey. [NYO]
♦ Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman has joined old-school jeweler Garrard as a guest designer. Good to know she's feeding the joint account now that husband Harvey's career isn't exactly on fire. On a related note, Marchesa's having a sample sale this week. [WWD, Teen Vogue]
♦ Kate Moss's transition from elusive to overexposed is officially complete, as she provides interview answers that miraculously manage to be even more mundane than the questions. Her "fail-safe party item," you'll be scintillated to hear, is a "little black dress." [Times UK]

What a mess: Paramount's reshuffling of 2008 awards bait including Defiance and The Soloist — the latter of which now won't open until next March — has left devastated Oscar watchers (including us) tossing out their carefully wrought Trophynomics™ calculations for the fall movies season. Few are more dismayed than the DreamWorks gang, whose hopes that The Soloist might at least cover the cost of hiring movers were met with the reality check that the 'Mount has more important, Brad Pitt-y things to do before year's end. We think this, along with other traumatic developments elsewhere over the last week, calls for an all-new Oscar scorecard; start over with us after the jump.So who's in and who's out? · The Soloist: OUT. The move to March 13 stings for everyone, especially with millions in marketing dollars already being spent ahead of the Jamie Foxx/Robert Downey Jr. drama's Nov. 21 release. Both men were on the bubble for actor nominations — Foxx as a schizophrenic cellist and RDJ as the journalist who chronicles his feel-good recovery journey — but Paramount's new conservatism (i.e. an intern hiding Brad Grey's checkbook) means it only has so many in-house resources to lend to its fall releases. The studio's semi-official insistence that the shifts have nothing to do with the film's quality or favoring its homegrown Benjamin Button and Scott Rudin/DreamWorks offering Revolutionary Road, but that's bullshit. It's not 2006 anymore; nobody can afford all this prestige at once.

Word has it that the Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road is soon to land on the Weinstein Company shelf, thus vanquishing 1/3 of Viggo Mortensen's 2008 Oscar dream and reviving rumors of TWC's solvency a mere day after Harvey flaked out on a Midtown crowd that couldn't wait to hear his plans for pulling a 2009 release slate out of his hat. At the least, the post-apocalyptic drama — once expected by Nov. 14 — was moved back to December shortly after the Weinsteins reclaimed the distribution duties from MGM, it still faces hassles with the Scott Rudin-less The Reader, and one blogger writes today of his test screening of a film isn't even close to finished (spoilers follow):

Hello. My name is Joshua David Stein. Today we will be discussing Project Runway, Harvey Weinstein's ailing reality television show that has to do with fashion and the human heart. Last night was that show's finale.
The fifth has been a brutal bruising hurricane season of Project Runway, full of tempests and tulle. Wednesday nights have ended typically in disgust and the nausea of knowing you've partaken in something unclean. For me and many of you—-you too, Joe the Plumber—the finale was a relief, not just because the winner deserved the honor of victory but because finally this sad vessel of Saturn and spite has finally found port and won't trouble our waters any longer.Gloom aside, though the season offered the most meager of heroes and the most grating of personalities, the runway collections, I think, were some of the best of all the seasons. Kenley's collection was full of color and ruffles and managed to cull from her the best of her personality (color and ruffles) and not the worst (underminery cheesefaced bitch!) Korto's collection, as MIchael Kors correctly pointed out, managed to incorporate her ethnicity whilst not avoiding the costumey. The rich deciduous green Korto used for her signature look, a spin on a classic halter top, was arresting yet not jarring. And Leanne. I'm no petal pusher or concept slut. But her Wave Collection effortlessly wed a clear, concise and fertile concept with aesthetic beauty and wearability. It is only fitting that Leanne won. Her collection embodied the craft of Korto while adding the intellectual rigor of Comme Des Garcons, Rick Owens, Martin Margiela and other successful avant garde houses. It was only Kenley's collection that, upon closer inspection, fails in terms of ideas (there were none), craftmanship (capable but not outstanding) and originality (Balenciaga Spring 2008, Ready To Wear). Leanne deserved to win not only for her collection but for her response to Heidi's query, "Why do you deserve to win?" Korto reverted to tautology. "I deserve to win," she seemed to say, "because I am worthy of winning." Useless. She did cry. Kenley, who also cried and whose voice warbled like the black-throated green warbler she is, said something (I think though again this is just a guess) about how she has personality and came to New York with personality and that she is capable of doing much more than what she did. She basically admitted that though what she has done thus far doesn't warrant victory, what she might do in the future does. It is no surprise that the judges decided not to award her a current trophy for something she has yet to accomplish. Only Leanne answered the question forthrightly with rock solid reasons and aplomb. "I'm innovative," she said, which is true. "Half of my fabrics are sustainable." Nailed it. She fucking nailed it. Never having to hear Kenley's voice again gives one the same sense of relief after having moved from a fifth floor walk up for two years into an elevator building. (A supposition. I'm still in the walkup.) Yet seeing her father in this final episode gives one a peek into perhaps why Kenley is annoying as she is. Her father, the tugboat captain, never smiled and looked, on the whole, as if he'd rather be on the deck of a ship somewhere. It's very unlikely that he noticed the rope details with which Kenley sought to bind herself and her work to him. No wonder she acts out for attention. When shall we see Project Runway again? The future of the show is murky and doubtful, buffeted about by the superegos of Harvey and Lifetime. If and when the next season airs, we'll be asked to throw our emotional lot in with another group of eager contestants. We'll go through the motions of being depressed, outraged, confused and engaged. But just as surely as seasons change, leaves fall and Michael Kors grows cattier every day, so too does the utility and relevance of Project Runway diminish. We may see you all on the runway again but the real question is if we'll care. Before I leave, I'd like to thank Mister Hippity, Richard Lawson and all those who have journeyed with us this season. It has been a pleasure and an honor to work beside and amongst you. Your dedication and perseverance in the face of a season with little to commend it is impressive, a boon to me, to our readers and to all who value a vital and honest exchange of ideas. And with that, auf Wiedersehen, I'm out.

All those rumors that the Weinstein Company is in trouble? Not true, says Bob Weinstein, who took the stage yesterday at the "Media and Money" conference hosted by Dow Jones and Nielsen and reassured the crowd that the start-up studio was doing just fine. "We're not going anywhere—not willingly, at least," he joked, later adding that the company shouldn't have any problems remaining solvent: "We're fortified with enough cash to keep this business going." If this was just spin, props to Harvey for leaving it to his younger brother to mislead the crowd. Harvey was the one originally scheduled to give the talk, but bowed out at the last minute for "personal reasons."

Harvey Calls in Sick: The beleaguered Harvey Weinstein dropped out of his scheduled keynote interview today at the Dow Jones/Nielsen "Media and Money" conference in New York, reportedly deferring to brother Bob and Weinstein Company COO Lee Solomon while he attended to a "personal matter." On the agenda: "[W]hat is Weinstein's view on the future of the film business and his company?" We hear his proxies stayed positive in the face of Harvey's conspicuous absence, noting that they have a sure-fire Oscar hopeful on their hands for December and that charitable giving is up a million percent from 2007. [DHD]

We take back everything we've ever said about Harvey Weinstein's promotional strategy for Zack and Miri Make a Porno, from his and Kevin Smith's wholly manufactured MPAA RatingsGate to our in-house suspicion of those ridiculous stick-figure posters currently making the rounds. Even our cautious optimism about the film's red-band trailer is bolstered today by This is Not Sex, a new Mean Magazine video featuring stars Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen caught in various throes of orgasm, conversation and contortion by filmmaker Tony Kaye. Its refined lunacy speaks for itself, but seriously: Every major fall release should be so lucky as to have its leads hanged online for unlawful carnal knowledge — except for Changeling, of course, which has its own burger-centric Pitt/Jolie collaboration to help nudge it over the top. To each his own, but really: Hula-hoop climaxes? Cha. Ching. [Mean Magazine]

If the plot isn't exactly thickening today around Scott Rudin's exit from The Reader, it's at least sustaining a low, convoluted simmer. Still nobody knows for sure the specific reasons for Rudin's move beyond the obvious, routine desire to gut Harvey Weinstein with a letter opener, but looking forward, a few new clues suggest the Oscar-season bloodbath has a while before it's drained.One awards-season wag points out the notable absence of The Reader from the Weinstein Company Web site, which may not be as insidious as it sounds; a cached version of the site dated Oct. 6 — three days before Rudin's escape — didn't feature the film either (God forbid any marketing resources be expropriated from the Zack and Miri campaign, which isn't faring so well itself). Meanwhile, another report sketches a fraught relationship between Reader director Stephen Daldry and Weinstein's designated Reader go-between Donna Gigliotti: "[T]he entire team 'despise her,' 'won't deal with her' and 'regard her as a [Weinstein] stooge.'" And so soon after Rudin threw in the towel! Are you shocked? OK, us neither. Again, we may never know, but Rudin's motivation is likely twofold: First, cut his losses and save face with Daldry, Kate Winslet (essentially out of the picture now herself) and the survivors of the late co-producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack. Second, as we noted in our cluttered Rudin/Weinstein scorecard a few weeks back, the principals at Rudin's go-to Oscar-campaign firm once were Harvey's field marshals at Miramax. We're not the only ones skeptical that they would go back into the fire — particularly on this project, with the only despot in town who spends a million dollars to buy bad press. Life — and the turnaround time here — is way, way too short.

We don't always know what to believe anymore when it comes to The Reader, but after a turbulent period of fighting, making up, gossip-page ensnarement and a charity payout, no one watching the tormented relationship between Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein could have realistically expected it to survive another two months leading up the release of their troubled Kate Winslet drama. And right on cue, that eerie silence of the last week is ended this afternoon when Rudin reportedly stripped his name from the Oscar hopeful, citing irreconcilable differences — among other things.Patrick Goldstein has the news at his blog, though details are foggy and fairly speculative; pretty much everyone knows by now how fiercely Rudin and Weinstein loathe each other, with both Weinstein and his pocketbook suffering last week as Rudin's authentic hate mail made the tabloid rounds. But contumely is the coin of the realm with these guys. As sure as their awkward public detente of 11 days ago was bullshit, couldn't they just as easily keep their mouths shut for two months as director Stephen Daldry went about his post-production business for a Dec. 12 opening? Ha. Like The Reader isn't just any movie — it's the final co-production of the late Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, and the film for which Harvey wants star Kate Winslet to compete against herself for an Oscar next year — these aren't just any tyrants. Someone to had to win, and win now. Goldstein notes that Rudin's talent relationships (Winslet, Daldry and screenwriter David Hare in particular) couldn't withstand the now-regular strafing, adding that Daldry isn't necessarily equipped to complete the film without Rudin guarding his back from a Harvey incursion. But finish it he will, under contract, assuming Dec. 12 still stands. If so, it's a worst-case scenario for everyone involved: Daldry will rush it, Winslet won't promote it, Rudin won't discuss it and Weinstein will drop the equivalent of a late-term abortion on a skeptical critical corps that can't wait to watch him burn through the last of his nine lives. It's not the film's fault, but hey. it's always the children who pay.

♦ Harvey Weinstein may be a million bucks poorer today. Or maybe not! After yesterday's email debacle, Harvey says he'll donate $1 million to the Robin Hood Foundation once he can verify that Scott Rudin's email is "authentic," which means he'll probably conduct an "investigation" into the matter until it blows over. [P6]
♦ Janet Jackson has been released from the hospital. But fiancé Jermaine Dupri doesn't seem too concerned. He hasn't missed any of his scheduled party appearances the past few days. [People, R&M]
♦ Britney Spears' lawyers have been working overtime to quash the sex tape she made with Adnan Ghalib. [The Sun]
♦ Salma Hayek was spotted in Paris with her ex Francois-Henri Pinault, which means it's time to start speculating about whether they're getting back together. [Daily Star]

"Weinstein's rep says that once he's verified the authenticity of the Rudin e-mail, he will donate $1 million to the Robin Hood Foundation." [Post, Previously]

No distance seems far enough, no HazMat suit thick enough to defend against the radioactivity let off by Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin's toxic Reader mess. This morning we're getting an idea of the clean-up cost for both parties — none more prohibitive than Harvey's, who today pledged $1 million to charity if Nikki Finke could turn up Rudin's alleged e-mail accusing him of "harrassing" ailing Reader co-producer Sydney Pollack for a 2008 release date. Even Rudin told Page Six: "That is not my e-mail. The contents of it are categorically untrue." Those gambits could have gone a lot better, as both men were soon to discover.The contents may in fact be untrue — just Rudin doing his malevolent macher business as usual. Harvey's survived worse. Alas, the e-mail itself turned out to be quite real, as Nikki proved last night in a post to Deadline Hollywood Daily. But what about Rudin's Page Six denial? Oh, that? Never mind:

This hasn't been a good week for Harvey Weinstein. Last Friday NBC successfully blocked Weinstein from moving Project Runway from NBC-owned Bravo to Lifetime. Over the past few days, he's also been engaged in an increasingly public (and increasingly messy) feud with producer Scott Rudin over the fate of The Reader, a romantic drama directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. Weinstein had wanted to release the film before the end of year so it could be an Oscar contender, and Rudin claims Weinstein stopped at nothing to move up the film's release date, going as far as to harass producer Sydney Pollock on his deathbed and pressure the grieving widow of Anthony Minghella (another of the film's producers) to make it happen.

What was Harvey Weinstein thinking? The movie mogul is already being dissed by once-pliant reporters and magazines, and struggling to right his company and other investments. Now he's given more ammunition to the haters and socked his pocketbook, all in one fast miscalculation. The Weinstein Company chief reportedly told the Post's Page Six he doubted the authenticity of an email quoted by aggressive Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke, and offered $1 million for charity if Finke could produce the original. The email, from movie producer Scott Rudin, concerned a feud over the release date of Kate Winslet vehicle The Reader. Page Six called Finke tonight and guess what? She has the email, and has already posted it. UPDATE: Rudin told Page Six Finke is lying. UPDATE 2: Rudin admits he lied to Page Six! See below.

With the news that fashion design reality fave Project Runway may not be airing on its new network, Lifetime, any time soon (because of a lawsuit between its current network, Bravo, their owner, NBC, and the Weinstein company, which produces the show), some may be wondering what the hell does this mean for the show. But I suspect that, like me, many of you have kind of stopped caring. Because the show has been pretty lackluster so far this season, and whenever the next iteration (the sixth go around) it's going to be on a crappier network and shot in Los Angeles, of all places. So really, NBC and Weinstein Company may be brattily fighting over a toy that's already been broken. The lawsuit—filed by NBC/Universal, who say that TWC violated a first right of refusal agreement when they decided to switch to Lifetime—is only dredging up the uglier, more commercial side of the show, indicating that the product placement-crazed Weinstein Company (and implicitly its fearsome old leader, Harvey Weinstein) would have the cast members dressed up in NASCAR-esque sponsored jumpsuits if they could. There was something magical (like the Magical Elves, the show's talented production team, who won't follow the show to Lifetime) about the first few seasons. Here was a supremely entertaining show with enjoyable hosts and judges, that was also about actual talent, and that rewarded creativity and innovative thinking. Sure there was some producer tinkering (Wendy Pepper beats Austin Scarlett?), but for the most part the show held up a banner of integrity. It won a Peabody, for God's sake! Which makes it so depressing to watch it slide into disrepair this season, with a questionably talented and too self-aware group of contestants and tired old challenges and obviously angry and frustrated judges. Bravo may have given up on this one because, heck, they were losing the show anyway, but it makes you wonder then why NBC is fighting so bitterly for it to return. The show isn't exactly fresh or new, it's six seasons old after all, with the sullied brand to show for it. Top Chef could be a serviceable (and younger) flagship show replacement for Bravo, right? Just let the grumpy old Weinstein Company ruin their show (incongruous location, new production team) and cram it into Lifetime's dim, uninteresting programming schedule. They'll basically hang themselves with their own taffeta rope. This is probably the last season of Project Runway that I'll be watching, and I don't think I'm alone in that. Sure next season, whenever the hell it happens, will have Tim and Heidi and Michael and Nina and all that, but after all this bickering and tinkering and product placement and drama, I just doubt that anyone involved is going to feel that, in the end, the juice was worth the squeeze.

After a brief but concentrated period of friction over the release date for their Oscar-bait drama The Reader, Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin issued a joint statement late Sunday confirming the film would arrive in theaters Dec. 12, 2008. Thus anticlimactically ended Rudin/Weinstein Death Match II, their first since The Hours, another Stephen Daldry film that endured a litany of tweaks and torment coming down to the awards-season wire in 2002. While Defamer scorekeepers last week favored Rudin in the tilt, a late flurry of Weinstein jabs sent the superproducer reeling to the canvas — or maybe not quite the canvas, but at least a sort of easy détente few saw coming when Harvey insisted on receiving Daldry's first edit a week from today. Let alone Rudin's congested awards roster also including Doubt and Revolutionary Road, the latter of which positions Reader star Kate Winslet in a potential race against herself for Best Actress. No word yet on whether or not Winslet will promote The Reader so close to Sam Mendes's Revolutionary Road or what kind of platform release the film faces with MGM out of the picture, but official word from Rudin, Weinstein and Daldry after the jump suggests at least three-quarters of a happy family:The Joint statement released Sunday was kind of lovely in an eerie, WTF way: "We are issuing this statement together to emphasize the fact that we are in complete agreement on the date we have chosen to release The Reader," said Rudin and Weinstein. "Working together, we developed a plan to extend the post-production schedule in order to give Stephen Daldry the additional time he needs to successfully complete the film in time to release it on December 12, 2008." One report places that extended schedule at a full month, overlapping with Daldry's current adaptation of Billy Elliott for Broadway. By all indications, a Factory Girl-esque race to final cut was the last thing the director wanted (at least he can skip the reshoots), but he's got his public happy face on for now. "On their own, Scott and Harvey spent this weekend working together to find a way to accommodate my needs so that I may fulfill my obligation to the studio without compromising my vision for the film," he said. "I am thrilled and relieved that we have all found a way forward to work together to bring The Reader to theaters this year." Great — The Harvey Renaissance is back on! Let's keep it this way, Fanboys notwithstanding.

Harvey Weinstein—who used to alternately flatter and cow the gossip columnists and reporters into submission—doesn't exert the same power over the New York press that he used to. The movie producer lunched Tony Ortega but the Village Voice editor still published embarassing business correspondence found in The Weinstein Company's trash. A second private phone conversation has now been leaked to Page Six at the New York Post, a newspaper which used to lap up Weinstein's tips and favors. (Click the thumb for the clip.) And more revelations are promised in a book called Film Fellas which is being touted around. It's as if they all think Harvey Weinstein won't be around to exact retribution.