Harvey Weinstein on fighting Trump and wanting to produce the Oscars
Outspoken Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein is putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to standing up to President Donald Trump.
The Weinstein Co. boss had previously said he was going to give the new president a chance. Now, a few months into Mr. Trump’s administration, what does Weinstein think?
“The less said, the better,” Weinstein told the Hollywood Reporter.
Instead, he’s now focusing on doing what he can to combat the effects of the new administration’s shifting priorities.
“Among the things I’m doing: a private foundation. I just named it the Miriam Foundation after my mom [who died in November], and I’m raising all the money,” he said. “We’re going to support [everything] from LGBT to women’s rights, more women directors, the National Endowment of the Arts. I’m going to finance a lot of it privately.”
Back in the realm of Hollywood, Weinstein revealed a long-held desire to take over producing the Academy Awards.
“Steven Spielberg and I once talked about producing it together. If we could survive each other, we’d do a great job,” he said.
The biggest problem the Oscars are currently facing, according to Weinstein, is that they’re quickly falling behind advancing technology and feel outdated. “They’re not using technology properly. It still feels like a variety show,” he said. “Jimmy Kimmel was brilliant, but give him a couple of things to do that are so mind-blowingly cool so people will go, ‘Oh my God.’ [Virtual reality] is just the start.”
Weinstein also admitted that he might be open to taking a job running one of the big studios, if only to get his hands on a major franchise.
“I never thought so, but now it [might] because you get to do $200 million movies, and we can’t do that here,” he said. “I wonder if we drove those comic books to a higher quality, would they do even better? God, I hate to think they’d do worse. So yeah, I’d like to have two years and say, ‘OK, guys, I’m gonna create a Star Wars franchise.’ Seriously.”