DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD DAILY: ‘ECLIPSE’ DIRECTOR UPDATE

The rumors over the ‘Eclipse’ director just go on and on. Nikki Finke at Deaadline Hollywood Daily, orginally broke the story saying, “I can confirm that Summit Entertainment is telling Hollywood privately that Juan Antonio Bayona will direct Eclipse.” Next, LA Times reporter, Patrick Goldstein, discounted the story and quoted Summit production president Erik Feig as saying, “Nikki never called Summit or any of the producers, and Variety ran it off her blog without calling us either, which I find doubly irresponsible.” Here is the response that Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily has posted:

6 PM FRIDAY UPDATE: Patrick Goldstein wrote at 4:43 PM today that Summit’s Erik Feig “hasn’t yet” confronted him as I said the exec would. In fact, a Summit rep tells me that Feig sent a statement around 3:30 PM to Goldstein for publication, and the columnist received it. I urge the Los Angeles Times blogger to correct his false statement to readers, and to publish Feig’s statement.

THURSDAY PM: Summit Entertainment’s president of worldwide production and acquisitions Erik Feig is accusing Los Angeles Times blogger Patrick Goldstein of misquoting him today about the accuracy of my reporting. And the movie executive has apologized to me. Feig also confirms that there’s no policy at his studio demanding that journalists must contact him, and only him, whenever they write about Summit films. (Especially since I’ve posted more than 25 news articles about Summit pictures in the past year, many of them scoops, and never got that Finke-Must-Call-Feig memo.) Feig told me he plans to confont the LA Times columnist who has slammed me three times this week alone (and each time mischaracterized what I’d written and refused to correct it). I’m still waiting for Goldstein to publish my response today that I stand by my story, which I worded very specifically to say: “I can confirm that Summit Entertainment is telling Hollywood privately that Juan Antonio Bayona will direct Eclipse.” I’d hate to think Patrick is becoming one of those journalists who, because they can’t break news, dump on those who do. And I look forward to Feig demonstrating that being a Hollywood exec, and doing the right thing, are not mutually exclusive.

SOURCE

See our orginal post from Deadline Hollywood Daily here.

To see the LA Times response, click here.

This story has certainly blown up in the last week. Whether or not Juan Antonio Bayona is the next ‘Eclipse’ movie director or not has become a huge story. I’m glad to see Nikki Finke sticking with her story, and getting an apology from Summit’s Erik Feig even if he was misquoted. It certainly makes it clear that until we hear from Summit themselves, we’re not going to know anything for sure.

What do you think of this back and forth controversy? Who do you believe right now?