I’ll Wait for the Movie

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. An assistant at a media company writes a thinly veiled critique of her former boss and gets a huge book deal. Yeah, yeah. The only twist in this story is that Rachel Pine’s novel, which is about a dysfunctional boutique studio oddly reminiscent of Miramax, was bought by Miramax Books.

In addition to the Weinsteins, there are a host of easily identifiable doppelgangers, including Steven Seagal, Billy Bob Thornton, Gwyneth Paltrow, Woody Allen, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, John Ritter, Larry Flynt, Woody Harrelson, Charlize Theron, David Schwimmer and Anna Wintour. Just as she has changed real people’s names ever so slightly (Thornton is called Jimmy-Joe Hawthorne), Pine also has altered several movie titles, but the ersatz replacements are hardly deceptive. “The English Patient” has become “The Foreign Pilot.” “Sling Blade” is known as “HackSaw.” “The Pallbearer” has been changed to “The Gravedigger,” “Scream” is now called “Shriek,” and “The Postman” is “The Milkman.”

The article quotes Harvey Weinstein as saying, “Contrary to popular belief, we do have a sense of humor about ourselves.” Hmmm. I’ll wait to see what he does with the movie.