Francis Ford Coppola's Lawsuit Against Variety Over Kissing Scandal Might Get Awkward

By Dustin Rowles | Film | September 13, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | September 13, 2024 |

As many know, Penske Media owns … this entire industry: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Rolling Stone, TVLine, etc. Basically, news about who will star in the next Marvel movie has a 92 percent chance of being announced on a Penske Media website.

To the credit of Penske Media, however, the sites do appear to have some semblance of editorial independence, except where — for instance — the Golden Globes are involved (Penske also owns the Golden Globes). That editorial independence revealed itself in July when Variety broke the news — via video evidence — that Francis Ford Coppola was allegedly sexually harassing extras on the set of his $120 million film Megalopolis.

Coppola is now suing Variety for its reporting. The suit claims that the Variety story claiming that The Godfather director ran an unprofessional set, and touched and tried to kiss female extras was false and libelous. Coppola is asking for $15 million in damages. Specifically, the lawsuit claims that Coppola is “a genius” and that “jealous” people are telling lies. From the AP:

“Writers and editors, hiding behind supposedly anonymous sources, accused Coppola of manifest incompetence as a motion picture director, of unprofessional behavior on the set of his most recent production, Megalopolis, of setting up some type of scheme so that anyone on the set who had a complaint of harassment or otherwise had nowhere to lodge a complaint, and of hugging topless actresses on the set. Each of these accusations was false.”

Here’s the awkward part. As evidence to back his claim, Coppola may ultimately turn to … Variety’s sister publication Deadline, which — via Kayleigh — “published an article that featured the extra from that video denying claims she was harassed or abused by Coppola. Rayna Menz came forward and posted on Instagram that she was ‘disgusted’ by the report and that ‘it was all false. In fact, I was the one who asked him to dance. I asked him to dance, in front of everybody else.’”

In other words, Penske-owned Deadline is running an article denying a report by Penske-owned Variety that just got the latter Penske Media publication sued by a “genius” who put $120 million of his own money into a film that’s poised to make less than $5 million in its opening weekend, according to another Penske site, The Hollywood Reporter.

It may also be worth noting that Deadline is reporting news about Coppola suing Variety, but Variety itself is not. I bet there’s a Pick-Me editor over on Deadline who is pumping their fists!