Harvey Weinstein and press agent Rick Miramontez have split on their new Broadway musical Finding Neverland, after heated words were exchanged between the former partners.
The exchange started after Weinstein, who is making his Broadway debut as lead producer for the show, addressed concerns about media coverage at a weekly planning meeting.
“We had no long lead stories lined up for GQ, Vanity Fair, New York magazine, and I went around the room with Rick and his team and asked, ‘Who is the editor of GQ?’ and other rudimentary questions that they had no answers to,” Weinstein told The New York Times. “Our only long lead story planned was in Vogue, and I arranged that.
Miramontez responded to Weinstein’s harsh words in an email with the Times:
“If I were a headline writer I’d go with this: BROADWAY TO HARVEY WEINSTEIN: DROP DEAD."
"We did discuss GQ, but his bizarre pop quiz on their editorial staff, which we ended up passing with flying colors, was not the problem,” he said in a separate e-mail. “The problem came when he demanded that they give Finding Neverland a cover. He doesn’t understand that the nation’s top men’s magazine is not going to devote a cover to his Broadway show.”
In a statement released to The Hollywood Reporter, the two parties said they both want what is best for the production.
"There are no hard feelings on either side of the recent theatrics, and we all move forward with one mutual desire -- for Finding Neverland to open on Broadway triumphantly," Miramontez and Weinstein Live Entertainment said.
The show, which stars Matthew Morrison and Kelsey Grammer, was set to begin previews March 15. The musical is based on the 2004 film starring Johnny Depp and had a run in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last summer.
