But what do you really think of Angelina Jolie, Scott?
The “Maleficent” star is nothing but a low-talent, rampaging spoiled brat from “Crazyland” in the eyes of firebrand producer Scott Rudin, according to the latest blazing in-house emails hacked from Sony Pictures.
In this new barrage — purportedly from the “Guardians of Peace” hacker brigade — Rudin rails in email after email about the star’s raging ego, thereby exposing his own.
“YOU BETTER SHUT ANGIE DOWN,” he writes in capital letters to Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal in a newly leaked February exchange over Jolie’s foundering project, a movie to be called “Cleopatra.”
“I’m not destroying my career over a minimally talented spoiled brat who thought nothing of shoving [‘Cleopatra’] off her plate for 18 months so she could go direct a movie [‘Unbroken’],” Rudin seethes.
There are many other flaming nuggets of vitriol in this latest installment from the hackers, who since November have been exposing some of the real-life scratching and snarling behind Hollywood’s fakey-fakey red-carpet air kisses.
In one new email, an agent swoons to Leonardo DiCaprio about “all you could have done” had he starred in “Boogie Nights.”
The agent, Robert Newman, then grovels, in an attempt to get DiCaprio to reconsider rejecting the title role in a Steve Jobs biopic. “I truly believe this is an opportunity we will look back on with regret if we don’t make happen,” he writes.
Another producer calls “American Hustle” producer Megan Ellison a “bipolar lunatic.” No apparent reason — he just calls her that. And producer Michael De Luca gushes, embarrassingly — during an email brainstorming over who could star in the Jobs pic — about how Michael Fassbender “makes you feel bad to have normal-sized male genitalia.”
There’s a slam at Kevin Hart. The funnyman actor is busted in an email from Pascal to two other Sony bigs for allegedly shaking the studio down — unsuccessfully — for still more moolah when they asked him to tweet about his next, unspecified movie. That would be money above and beyond his $3 million contract.
“I’m not saying he’s a whore, but he’s a whore,” studio exec Clint Culpepper snipes of Hart’s big ask, before adding, “I never cease to be amazed at the chutzpah of actors.
“And directors. And writers. And producers,” he adds. “Have I left anyone out?”
But even compared to these exemplars of bad Tinseltown behavior, the Rudin-versus-Jolie flameouts, reported by Gawker.com, reign spectacular.
Behind the scenes, Jolie was “pissed off” — Pascal’s words — over Rudin poaching David Fincher, the director she wanted for “Cleopatra.”
Jolie was furious that Rudin gave Fincher the script to “Jobs,” and in the email exchange, Pascal asks Rudin to phone the actress and smooth her feathers.
I’m not destroying my career over a minimally talented spoiled brat who thought nothing of shoving [‘Cleopatra’] off her plate for 18 months so she could go direct a movie.
- Scott Rudin
“The masturbatory call is a wank I have no time for,” Rudin growls.
Things soon got even uglier.
“Do not f–king threaten me,” Pascal responds to Rudin’s “YOU BETTER SHUT ANGIE DOWN” rage. After which Rudin is off and running.
“What the hell are you talking about? Who’s threatening you? Let me remind you I brought this material to you and I can off her from it in a phone call,” he writes of “Cleopatra.” “Don’t for one second even think about trying this s–t with me.
“There is no movie of Cleopatra to be made (and how is that a bad thing given the insanity and rampaging spoiled ego of this woman and the cost of the movie is beyond me),” Rudin tells Pascal. “This will just spin even further out into Crazyland,” he writes. “But let me tell you I have zero appetite for the indulgence of spoiled brats and I will tell her this if you don’t.”
And another thing: “Watch how you talk to me,” he adds.
Rudin, however, is not finished with Pascal — or Jolie.
The actress is a “camp event” who will make Sony Pictures a “laughingstock,” he writes.
“She’s a camp event and a celebrity and that’s all, and the last thing anybody needs is to make a giant bomb with her that any fool could see coming,” he writes.
“We will end up being the laughingstock of our industry and we will deserve it, which is so clearly where this is headed that I cannot believe we are still wasting our time with it.”
The Jobs project would later be snapped up by Universal Studios, but not before Sony made one last bid to interest Tom Cruise in the lead role.
“Love love love this,” Pascal reacted to this casting idea.
Not so interested was De Luca, who feared that choosing Cruise “will be met with derision because it’s such a commercial choice.”
Incidentally, Fassbender reportedly leads the pack in Universal’s casting for the part of Jobs.