Producer Scott Rudin called Angelina Jolie ‘a minimally talented spoiled brat’ in leaked emails

Angelina Jolie Scott Rudin

Throughout the past few weeks, Sony Pictures Entertainment has been under attack by hackers. It started when several movies, included some yet unreleased ones such as Annie, were leaked online. The hackers then revealed various actors and producers’ contract details and information on what aliases they use. In the latest round of leaks, the hackers shared scathing emails from No Country For Old Men producer Scott Rudin about Angelina Jolie.

The long chain of messages were sent to Sony co-chairperson Amy Pascal, whom Rudin was also tearing into for not freeing up David Fincher to work on the new Steve Jobs bio-pic. The background is that Angelina was courting Fincher for her new Cleopatra movie, but it is way farther behind in development than the Jobs film. So, Rudin was upset that Angelina was keeping Fincher on a hook and that Sony was allowing her to do that.

Many of the emails are heated and all of them are very interesting — read them at Gawker. But, the key one is a February correspondence in which Rudin seemed to make an ultimatum…

I’m not destroying my career over a minimally talented spoiled brat who thought nothing of shoving this off her plate for eighteen months so she could go direct a movie. I have no desire to be making a movie with her, or anybody, that she runs and that we don’t. 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. We will end up being the laughing stock 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…

I’m also happy to say all of this to Angie directly as I have no need to keep her happy and what I DO have is the right to determine for myself a) what I want to do with my own time and work, and b) what I want to do with material I incepted…

Neither Rudin nor Angelina have responded to the leak. Sony hasn’t either, although that’s understandable because they are busy dealing with the larger mess and trying to placate the hackers who “demand” the studio doesn’t release James Franco and Seth Rogen’s The Interview. In an open letter on Monday, the hackers insisted Sony “stop immediately showing the movie of terrorism which can break the regional peace and cause the War!”