Peter Bart defends Variety’s hard-nosed reporting

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Variety’s venerable Peter Bart didn’t like my Friday posting about John Lesher running Paramount Vantage into the ground, calling it a shrill ‘rant,’ his way of saying that I lack the smooth, world-weary cynicism that colors Bart’s own writing. He was also clearly peeved that I had the temerity to point out how Bart’s trade paper, never one to ever step on any studio toes, had managed to cover the firing of 60 Vantage staffers in true accept-the-press-release style, failing to note that the staffers were taking the fall for Vantage’s inability to make any money (while Lesher whooshed off to become Paramount’s head of production).

I admit that I was hoping Bart would write an open letter to me, like he does to everyone else in Hollywood. But he did manage to willfully misrepresent what I wrote, claiming I had criticized Variety for failing to report the dismissal of Amy Israel, a talented Vantage’s acquisitions executive. My complaint wasn’t that Variety didn’t report her firing, but that it didn’t report what her firing meant--that Vantage is being transformed from a specialty film division to a genre film division, a la Screen Gems or Rogue Pictures. Bart claims otherwise, saying he has been assured so by Lesher himself. Having been assured by studio execs over the years of the impending success of hundreds of films that turned out to be dogs, I would advise a little more caution.

Bart defends Lesher, asking the question: ‘Should the press also clobber guys like Lesher who may have been overambitious about some of his art films? The public, at least, got some terrific movies out of the venture.’ If Bart had read my piece more carefully, he might have noted that I praised Lesher for the quality of his films. The problem was that Vantage lost money on most of those movies. Because of its lack of fiscal responsibility, Vantage won’t have a chance to make many more of them. That’s the real issue here. You can make the greatest movies in the world, but if you can’t find a way to pay for them, the bean counters are going to show up some day and padlock your doors.

Peter Bart photo from AMC