THR Writer Causes Backlash After Requesting “Priority” at Screenings

The Twitter wolves have been circling THR’s Scott Feinberg for a while now, I won’t get into his other controversies, which weren’t as bad as you might have been led to believe, but yesterday might have been the final straw.

Social media is aghast after yesterday’s Vanity Fair, piece, written by Charlotte Klein, tried to take down Feinberg for allegedly asking for “priority” access when it came to the upcoming hot fall titles.

It’s being called “the email heard around Hollywood.” What hyperbole!

Feinberg is the top pundit in the biz, given that he’s THR’s executive awards editor, I seen nothing wrong in what he was asking. The VF piece published a confidential email that Feinberg sent to a film publicist asking for “priority” access to early screenings and that there would be a price to pay if the studios didn’t abide by his request.

Feinberg: “As you plan the rollout of your film(s), I would like to respectfully ask that you not show films to any of my fellow awards pundits before you show them to me, even if that person represents himself or herself to you as (a) a potential reviewer of it, (b) needing to see the film in order to be part of decisions about covers, or (c) really anything else.”

Feinberg’s “do not fuck with me” stance comes in the second part of the email message …

Moving forward, [THR] may take that into consideration the booking of roundtables, podcasts, and other coverage.

VF claims that sources who saw the email—which “went out widely and has since circulated even further”—found it “absurd” and as “an implied threat” that they had to take seriously.

Really? That’s what they got out of Scott’s email? I didn’t think it was that threatening. As the writer of a big trade, he just wants to be part of the very first screenings. There’s nothing wrong in asking for that. It’s not as if he requested for the movies to be screened solely for him in a big empty movie theater. He’s just asking to be part of the first invites.

Here’s Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone bringing much-needed clarity to this overblown controversy:

It’s been like this for years. Studios always play favorites. They do this to curry favor, to make some people feel "special" in order to launch out of the gate with praise. Everyone knows they do this. For years all of us in the Oscar game have had to fight for who gets to see a movie "first." […] As far as I can tell, Scott has always been more than generous with studios -- in fact, he often pushes movies onto his predictions that, IMO, don't deserve to be there. He is of value to them. He should be one of the group they ask to see the movie first.

The usuals, such as the insufferable Erik Anderson, decided to pounce on Feinberg, alleging that he’s posted “misogynistic” tweets in the past. Where exactly are these misogynist tweets? Was it the time Feinberg stated that Letitia Wright would not get an Oscar nomination because she was an anti-vaxxer? That’s not misogynistic, it’s just plain common sense. Politics do come into play when it comes to Oscar consideration.