BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Ninety years ago, Louis B. Mayer created an elite club that would become the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Membership, granted for life, quickly turned into the ultimate indicator of status — moviedom’s equivalent of the mob’s “made man.
”Offscreen malfeasance mattered not. Perhaps contributing to the film industry’s willingness to tolerate sexual harassment, bullying, drug abuse and worse, the academy has long insisted that professional achievement is what counts. Bill Cosby is still a member. So is Roman Polanski. Mel Gibson was never kicked out, even after his 2006 anti-Semitic tirade was followed by a 2011 no-contest plea to battering a former girlfriend.
But the academy stands at a precipice. Harvey Weinstein could change everything.
On Saturday morning, the academy’s 54-member board will meet at the group’s mirrored-glass offices here to discuss what to do about Mr. Weinstein in the wake of investigations by The New York Times and The New Yorker that revealed sexual harassment and rape allegations against him going back decades. Options include doing nothing (possible), revoking his membership (as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts did on Wednesday) and even nullifying the best-picture Oscar Mr. Weinstein won in 1999 for producing “Shakespeare in Love” (unlikely).
The emergency academy meeting comes as people are fleeing the New York-based studio Mr. Weinstein helped found. A fourth member of the Weinstein Company’s all-male board, Richard Koenigsberg, resigned on Thursday as talk of bankruptcy swirled. The creative forces behind the musical “In the Heights,” Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara A. Hudes, publicly called on the Weinstein Company to relinquish its movie adaptation rights. Apple ended plans for a Weinstein-produced series about Elvis Presley.
Late Friday, Amazon decided not to move forward with a Weinstein-produced mafia series from David O. Russell that had previously received a two-season commitment and was estimated to cost $160 million.
“We support Amazon’s decision as in light of recent news and out of respect for all those affected we have decided together that it is best to not move forward with this show,” Mr. Russell said in a statement with two stars of the series, Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore.
Mr. Weinstein, who was fired by his company on Sunday, has responded to allegations of sexual misconduct with a mix of
The post Harvey Weinstein May Get Kicked Out of the Oscar Club appeared first on FeedBox.