If I asked you to close your eyes and envision the worst possible celebrity interview scenario, what would it be? The right answer is of course Deadline’s Mike Fleming, Jr. interviewing Woody Allen.
The Nikki Finke-Jay Penske Deadline battle has taken a cinematic turn; Roger Ebert's family is trying to get his thumbs up memorialized in bronze; please stop all liquid intake at least 12 hours before The Wolf of Wall Street; and How I Met Your Mother continues to irk.
In an effort to beef up the ranks of Deadline since Nikki Finke's departure, Penske Media Corporation has announced that they will be resurrecting veteran journalist Anita Busch's career, a little over a decade after she left reporting.
The ongoing battle between PMC's Jay Penske and Deadline's Nikki Finke started with a bang and is now ending with a whimper, as Finke is finally out of the motor oil heir's slippery clutches. Finke shared with me that while she's happy to be free from Deadline, she is sad over the way the separation played out, and offered parting thoughts on Penske, Deadline film editor Mike Fleming Jr., and the fact that at one point, she offered to quit online blogging entirely.
Tired as we all may be about seeing the words Nikki Finke and Deadline appear on this website today, Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr. has shot back at Finke. In a mildly interesting but slightly expected turn of events, Fleming sells his boss down the river in his latest blog post, proving that good friends do indeed stab you in the front. Who knew that Finke would come out as today's winner in the battle for the moral high ground?
Nikki Finke is not leaving Deadline quietly. In fact, according to my exclusive conversation with her on Thursday night, she's leaving amidst a litany of accusations ranging from boredom to slavery. According to Finke, "[Penske] owns me like I'm his slave" and has been harassing her. She goes on to say that the current iteration of Deadline is "bland and boring," and that Penske's working conditions are "breaking federal and state law."
In a 1583 word soliloquy, Deadline's film editor Mike Fleming announced today that he will be stepping up his role at the troubled e-trade, and will officially be spending half a year in Los Angeles and the remainder at his Long Island home. But does this mean he's being groomed to replace editor-in-chief, Nikki Finke?
Demi Lovato is poised to write the next Great American Novel, 140 characters at a time; John Grisham's oeuvre is taking its act from just Hudson News bookstores in airports across America to The Great White Way; and as always, nobody thinks more highly of Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline than, well, Mike Fleming Jr.
Everybody hates Ryan Seacrest; Breaking Bad's alternate storylines will paralyze you with fear; Nikki Finke still hates The Wrap; but Mark Gordon hates ICM more.
In today's episode of Hollywood Dance Moms, the feud between Deadline's Nikki Finke (Abby Lee, natch) and The Wrap's Sharon Waxman (sucks to be Cathy) goes for another round: this time over Waxman's upcoming annual conference on the intersection of journalism, entertainment, and technology, TheGrill. FX's president is scheduled to speak there, a transgression that has earned his network a coverage ban in Finke's Deadline.com.
