Anyone who follows the Western entertainment industry has probably heard of Miramax and its founders, the Weinstein brothers.
For a long time, they were known as the "gods of the Oscars."
If they backed a film, it almost always won.
The wildest example was in 1999, when their Shakespeare in Love slapped Saving Private Ryan right across the face and walked away with Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Screenplay.
From that point on, anyone who dreamt of holding a golden statuette made sure to buy the brothers lunch—or at least a cup of tea.
This year, the Weinsteins had three Oscar campaigns lined up: Gangs of New York, The Hours, and Chicago.
All three were going for Best Picture and Best Director.
Then Gangs of New York's lead, Daniel Day-Lewis, was aiming for Best Actor.
Nicole Kidman from The Hours and Renée Zellweger from Chicago were both competing for Best Actress.
Meanwhile, supporting actresses like Julianne Moore (The Hours), Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Queen Latifah (Chicago) were all looking to snag Best Supporting Actress nominations.
Releasing three Oscar contenders in a single year might sound insane—after all, even the Oscars wouldn't hand out three Best Picture awards in one go—but for the Weinsteins, that was never a problem.
Because Oscar campaigning was just business. Whoever paid the most, they backed the hardest.
As for everyone else?
I'm sorry.
If you didn't pay enough, well, you'd just have to settle for a nomination.
Of course, if someone didn't have money but still had "artistic ideals" and was "willing to sacrifice for the art," Harvey could generously find them a rich sponsor to foot the campaign bill.
Yeah—Harvey Weinstein wasn't just a producer; he was also a professional pimp. Everyone in the industry knew it.
But all that easy swagger was from before.
Right now, things were different.
If The Voice entered the Oscar race, Miramax would be in serious trouble.
There were two reasons why:
First, they knew their own limits. Miramax wasn't as magical as outsiders thought. They didn't control the Oscars—they just spent more money than everyone else.
And why didn't the big studios outspend them?
Simple.
Oscar campaigning was business, sure—but not good business. Sony could make more profit off one failed superhero movie than from five Oscar-winning films combined (except Titanic). And that's just from box office revenue.
If you factored in merchandising and licensing…
One failed blockbuster could earn more than twenty Best Picture winners combined.
They made twenty years' worth of Miramax money in one movie.
That's how ridiculous it was.
So Miramax's success wasn't because they were geniuses—it was because the big studios didn't care to compete in a losing game.
For the giants, Oscar campaigns were just expensive PR vanity projects—fun to play, but only in moderation.
That's why, with The Voice backed by Warner Bros., if the big guys actually got serious, Miramax couldn't outspend them.
Second, The Voice itself was an absolute monster of a contender.
The director, Chris Columbus, was part of the Spielberg circle—meaning automatic Oscar credibility.
Then the cast was entirely British, and the project's lead and driving force, Isabella Haywood, carried the ultimate weapon: the Harry Potter buff.
Because when J.K. Rowling personally lifted the entire British film industry with HP, she basically became its patron saint.
The Harry Potter IP could've gone global with mixed casting—but Rowling refused. She insisted on an all-British lineup.
When she fought Warner tooth and nail to keep every role "in the family," the entire UK acting world ended up owing her.
And since Rowling wasn't an actress herself… well, how exactly do you repay that kind of favor?
Oh, what a tricky question indeed.
"If The Voice really campaigns for the Oscars, every British member of the Academy is probably going to vote for it," Bob Weinstein muttered.
Leaning back on the sofa, he ground his teeth. "Between Spielberg's and Rowling's camps, that's at least a thousand votes. That alone is enough to win any year. Add a little extra spending from Warner, and…"
"All our work this year goes up in smoke."
The Oscar game was simple math.
Addition was when you won votes for yourself.
Subtraction was when you stopped others from getting votes.
The first part—buying support—was straightforward: just pay up.
The second—undermining your rivals—meant smearing them.
Because you couldn't buy all 6,000 Academy members. A thousand was already the upper limit.
So, you leaked dirt on potential threats, made sure voters thought those films were "untrustworthy," and voilà—you improved your odds.
Earlier last year, the Weinsteins had identified The Pianist as their biggest competition.
So they dug up Roman Polanski's decades-old scandal and broadcast it to the world.
Yes—the 25-year-old case was their doing.
They'd spent two million dollars resurrecting it.
They thought that would secure their wins. But now… that money might as well have gone up in smoke.
Their new biggest threat? The Voice.
"Bob…"
"Yeah?"
"What if we leak that The Voice has a screenwriting credit issue?"
Harvey puffed on his cigar, exhaled a smoky ring, reclined on his red, starlet-soaked sofa, and said lazily—
"We can have Michael Arndt come forward and say The Voice was originally his script. That Isabella stole it and erased his name."
"If that rumor spreads, The Voice will be disqualified from this year's Oscars."
"Because the Academy's submission rules clearly state that any film under investigation for copyright or plagiarism disputes automatically loses eligibility."
And since the Oscar nomination and voting timeline was short, you couldn't smear someone after nominations were announced.
You had to kill the competition before they got in.
So—
If The Voice was going for it, the Weinsteins were ready to draw their guns.
Harvey figured the screenwriting scandal was the perfect bullet.
But if even Robert Shaye, backed by Ted Turner, hadn't dared go public with the same claim for fear of backlash, then someone as notorious as Harvey definitely shouldn't either.
Still, Harvey wasn't about to give up.
Just because they couldn't say it didn't mean no one could.
They could simply pay the original Little Miss Sunshine screenwriter to come out and "accuse" Isabella directly.
The truth wouldn't matter. The goal was to stain The Voice's reputation.
If they could do that, they'd already win.
But—
"No."
Bob rejected it instantly.
"Harvey, rumor campaigns and smear attacks only work on people at or below our level. You never attack someone higher up."
"Isabella isn't just a Warner property now—she's also a Disney one. When she's profitable for Warner and favored by Disney, even if we throw all our money at this, we'll never beat their combined media machine."
"More importantly—our own hands aren't clean!"
"If Barry Meyer and Bob Iger find out we're behind this, they'll bury us. No trial—just a power outage, and we'll be found hanging by our underwear the next morning."
They only wanted to hurt The Voice, not declare war on major capital.
But targeting the screenplay meant targeting Isabella herself—Warner's new cash cow.
Mess with a studio's golden goose, and they'd snap your neck before you could blink.
And as for Disney—
They knew the company too well.
Ever since Robert Iger brought Pixar into the fold, no one underestimated him again.
He might look kind, but anyone who could climb from weather anchor to COO of a Fortune 500 company didn't do it with a soft heart.
"So what do we do then? We can't just give up!"
"We've already taken too much money!"
Harvey was frustrated.
Their three Oscar campaigns had pulled in fifteen million in "entry fees."
He'd already spent most of it. Losing the Oscar was one thing—losing his reputation was worse.
And to make matters worse, this year's Best Actress race was overflowing with contenders.
Some had been "blessed" on his red sofa; others were bankrolled by powerful men. Either way, he had to make some of them happy—or he'd end up dead before Warner even moved a finger.
Since he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't, he might as well go down fighting.
Bob sighed, visibly annoyed by his brother's habits.
Sure, everyone in Hollywood played dirty—but why did Harvey have to tie his pants to his career?
You want to fool around? Fine. But maybe one at a time?
You can't handle a whole harem of promises at once! That was a disaster waiting to happen.
So—
"Bob? Oh—my dear little brother—what's with that look?"
Even though Bob's disgust flashed for just a second, Harvey caught it immediately.
And he didn't like it one bit.
"We're talking business here, okay? Why are you bringing personal emotions into it?"
"And don't forget—you spent that money too! You're no cleaner than I am!"
"If I go down, you go down with me!"
"…Fine." Bob finally gave in, pressing his hands down to calm his brother.
"Okay, okay. Let's talk business."
"You want to take down The Voice, right?"
"How about this—what if we bring New Line into it?"
"The people who want The Voice dead the most right now are New Line and Ted Turner."
"So…"
"Why don't we let them light the match?"
Bob stuck his tongue out at his brother.
That little "clown" act made Harvey frown in disgust.
Truth be told, New Line Cinema was the one company Harvey least wanted to deal with—because The Lord of the Rings had originally been his project.
Back in 1997, he and Peter Jackson had jointly secured the adaptation rights.
But when Disney balked at the projected 300-million-dollar production cost, they had to shop it elsewhere.
After being rejected again and again, New Line finally opened its doors.
Except—New Line refused to let Miramax keep any rights to the film. They wouldn't even agree to share them.
Yeah, that was Hollywood's unwritten rule: the big studios hoard the rights.
Since the dawn of Hollywood, only two men had ever told the studios "No" and kept full control of their work—George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Everyone else, even James Cameron, had to share.
So the Weinstein brothers had no choice but to swallow their pride. After much wrangling, they sold the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to New Line for 12 million dollars—keeping only a 5% share of the box office.
That deal made Harvey hate Robert Shaye with a vengeance.
But he couldn't say a word.
Because behind Robert Shaye stood Ted Turner.
When The Lord of the Rings exploded at the box office, Harvey had fantasies of stabbing Shaye in the gut.
But again—Ted Turner.
That feud ran deep. So when his brother suggested letting New Line do the dirty work and "use a wolf to kill a tiger," Harvey's mood flipped from sour to ecstatic.
"Bob, what are you thinking?"
Harvey's eyes lit up.
"No one in this world is clean," Bob said, raising an eyebrow with a smirk.
"And?" Harvey pressed, leaning forward eagerly.
Bob spoke slowly, savoring the setup:
"If we want to destroy The Voice, we have to go after Isabella. The rest don't matter."
"Get to the point," Harvey snapped.
Bob sighed. "Alright. I've heard Isabella's father works in finance, right? Predicted the '92 crisis, bet right on the peso in '94, shorted the Thai baht in '97? One man can't be that lucky."
Lounging back on the sofa, he spread his hands.
"Even if her father did make that money by chance, he lost everything in the dot-com crash—but who cares?"
He smiled.
"As Gustave Le Bon wrote in The Crowd: 'The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions becomes their master.'"
"So… if Hermione Granger were actually the daughter of a financial con artist—if she grew up enjoying luxuries paid for with the public's blood and sweat…"
"Do you think people would still adore her?"
"They wouldn't."
"And once that story breaks, we'll have Michael Arndt come out and say she stole his script."
"Now imagine what the public will think."
"They'll believe it instantly, right?"
"Because a criminal's daughter must be a criminal herself."
"Cruel plan?" He shrugged. "Maybe. But so what?"
"And if Ted Turner's current target is the Ross family, then the nastier our idea, the more likely Robert Shaye is to take it to him. Once that happens, it's out of our hands. What they do next isn't our concern."
A cold glint flickered in Bob's eyes.
Harvey's lips curled.
As always—only the living get to talk about morality.
The dead just fade away.
"I love it," Harvey said, grinning. "But we'll need prep work. We have to dig up real material. Only then will Shaye take the bait."
Just picturing his most hated rival tearing down his biggest competitor made Harvey practically tremble with delight.
He grabbed the phone, dialed a number, and said,
"Darling, get to Miramax—your boss needs a cigar girl."
Bob felt queasy.
He shot his brother a look full of disgust, knowing exactly what would happen next: Harvey would "relieve some tension" before returning to his Oscars scheming.
Bob rose abruptly and left the office.
Meanwhile, in London, at Leavesden Studios—
Isabella sat before her computer, checking new emails.
"Okay, Bob, I got your message," she said over the phone. "I'll read it and call you back."
"Yes, yes, I know you're not in a rush. My priority right now is Prisoner of Azkaban, no time for new projects. But hey, we have an understanding—even if it's just verbal, I haven't forgotten."
"Alright~ When I'm in L.A., I'll treat you to dinner. And don't think I'm paying cheap, either~"
When the call ended, Isabella turned to her sister with a smile.
"Bob's really…"
"Still impatient," Catherine finished the sentence for her.
They looked at each other, then burst out laughing.
Even though Vivian had said Disney's Iger hadn't pressured them when congratulating The Voice for crossing $100 million globally, as soon as Isabella called him back to ask about upcoming projects, Iger instantly sent her a Disney company email full of pending film concepts.
That made his intentions clear—he wanted results fast.
After all, he was gunning for the Disney CEO chair.
Everyone climbs for power, after all.
"Hey, sis~" Isabella whined, "I can't focus without something to drink when I work overtime."
Catherine rolled her eyes, stood up, and returned moments later with a tray: teapot, cups, and snacks.
Isabella chuckled, poured herself a cup, took a sip—
Ah, the gentle aftertaste of Anji White.
Then she bit into a bear-shaped biscuit.
"Huh? Not sweet!"
Her eyes brightened.
Catherine tried one too. "They must've cut the sugar."
Before she could say more, she called toward the door, "Margot?"
"Yeah?"
"Did the restaurant make new cookies today?"
"Mhm! I asked them to make sugar-free ones this morning—no sugar, no sweeteners, just the taste of milk! Because Isabella doesn't like sweet stuff~"
"Oh, alright."
Catherine turned back to her sister.
Isabella just shook her head with a laugh. Precocious kid.
She popped another biscuit into her mouth, chewing happily.
"Alright, enough talking—back to reading."
——
(Source: Polanski accusing Weinstein of smearing him)