In recent months, a feud between Deadline and Variety writers has been brewing.
The latest drama occurred yesterday when Deadline’s Mike Fleming published his “exclusive” story involving Neon’s “The Life of Chuck” acquisition. A little less than an hour later, Variety’s Rebecca Rubin published her own Chuck/Neon story but decided to also mark it as an “exclusive.” This didn’t sit well with Fleming who decided to add a note to his original story:
Variety ran a story three minutes behind Deadline’s scoop, and then changed their time stamp to 11:53, to appear that they had broken this story. We at Deadline are not here to bend time; it seems enough that our readers who rely on us to break virtually every festival deal story know that the other side fudged it).
You gotta love the pettiness.
During the summer, both trades, owned by Jay Penske’s PMC, kept attacking each other over whether Francis Ford Coppola was a “predator” on the set of “Megalopolis.”
It all started when Variety reported that “Megalopolis” director Coppola was seen kissing extras on the set of his movie. The trade published their story with video of Coppola planting a smacker on an extra.
A few days later, Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr. slammed Variety’s reporting, writing that their hit piece was “published for clicks”. Fleming reached out to the extra in the Variety video, Reyna Menz, who refuted the whole thing, saying it was all innocent, and that she was appalled there even was a video shot and then published.
Variety’s Tatiana Siegel and Brent Lang shot back and published a rebuttal. Coppola finally had enough and decided to sue Variety, Lang and Siegel for defamation.
For this feud to be mounted in public — it’s too wild to comprehend. Variety and Deadline are located in the same building in California.
There’s a bit of history here. Deadline’s Fleming had originally been invited to the first screening of “Megalopolis” back in March in LA. It was his exclusive, and he was the only journalist there. He raved about it, and reported of a highly enthusiastic reaction. However, this was followed, a few days later, by Penske’s Hollywood Reporter and Variety reporting the opposite — declaring that the reception was muted and the movie “unreleaseable”.