‘The Village Voice’ Goes Through Harvey Weinstein’s Garbage

The Weinstein Co. is surely looking for some new assistants today, after Tony Ortega found an unshredded pile of Harvey Weinstein’s correspondence in a recycling bin on Greenwich Street and published details in The Village Voice, where he’s Editor-in-Chief. The trash, which included screenplays, phone lists, e-mails, and unsigned contracts, reveals that Weinstein is engaged in nitty-gritty details on product placement in Weinstein Co.’s hit Project Runway, suggests that Anne Hathaway’s role in Promises, Promises could’ve gone to Gwyneth Paltrow, hints that Bullets Over Broadway on Broadway is proceeding apace, and puts a number on the salary Nicole Kidman would’ve gotten for The Reader if she hadn’t had to drop out owing to pregnancy: a mere $100,000, plus a $450,000 break-even bonus.

Though we devoured every detail of Ortega’s Dumpster-diving, it did make us a little sad — after all, this is the Voice, a paper responsible for any number of investigative-journalism masterpieces over the years. That their best scoop in recent memory came from stumbling upon a mogul’s trash points to the new direction the paper’s gone on Ortega’s watch, and seems a little tawdry and lame — like something we would do. We’ll give it to Ortega, though — he’s not afraid to be a dick about his discovery: He says he bought a shredder at Staples and sent it to Weinstein Co.

When Ortega called Weinstein for comment, fingers obviously crossed for a quotable verbal explosion from the famously sharp-tongued producer, Harvey managed to keep his cool, cracking jokes about sending Ortega his laundry for him to root through as well. But we can’t even imagine how apocalyptic the scene was inside Weinstein’s offices after that phone call. It’s possible that the assistants weren’t even fired — they simply exploded, and Weinstein had to call the Wolf in to clean things up.

Trash Talking With Harvey Weinstein [VV]

Note: “On the other hand, Harvey optioned Wolf Boy, so he’s okay in our book!�