Ankler Preview: Ron Baby Ron
Get off of My Ron. Ronmegeddon. I Hear You Singing Through the Meyer. Meyer in the Hole, Where's the Meyer? Ron Sequitor
Just three days ago, the NYT proclaimed, a la the changes at Warner Media, the death of Old Hollywood.
And then here we have it, as if to prove the rumors of its death were not exaggerated, Old Hollywood staggers forward to send packing one of the very last of its old lions, Ron Meyer.
There are mountains of implications to unpack here, as well as a genuine Hollywood mystery. The more you look at the story here, the less the pieces fit. Some thoughts on the sudden, dramatic, perplexing downfall of an entertainment titan:
• Old Hollywood ends with a whimper not a bang. What stands out most is how sad this is. Sad is the specter of Charlotte Kirk being passed around between moguls, and then coming back to squeeze more out of it. Sad that these men who have literally everything in the universe that anyone could want at their fingertips are behaving this way. Sad for their families. Sad that one of the great careers in Hollywood, someone who has been such an important part of so much, should go out this way.
On paper it's the story of a vengeful femme fatale, destined to be an episode of Karina Longworth's podcast in 15 years. But the truth of it is so . . . unglamorous, tawdry, and damn pathetic.
• There is nothing this town loves more than a downfall. The bloodlettings that follow, jumping up and down on the reputations of those cast out is more than a Hollywood tradition, it's a religion—long pre-dating Me Too, Cancel Culture, and so forth. The causes have changed, though. These days, it's not producing too many flops, embezzling, or spending too much to redecorate one's office. Instead, it’s harassment, racism, insensitivity, and abusive behavior.
But the mass glee over a downfall is the same as it was when Selznik washed up. Hollywood—and particularly the Hollywood media—shows how tough it is by being absolutely merciless to a mogul, just the second he's lost every ounce of his power. In a business where there are a million contenders for every job (and no particular qualifications needed), downfalls are how we make room for fresh blood, clear the brush as it were. In a business where no one knows everything, the ritual sacrifice of someone else relieves the sense that the universe will demand one's own blood tomorrow.
But even given that, even considering how much we cherish our downfalls, you can feel a real dearth of glee—what's the German word for "absence of schadenfreude"?—at this sad turn for someone who made so many friends across the industry for so long.
• What we've got here is the end for the last of Hollywood's made men. They were supposed to have been immortal, that's all we wanted. Not much to ask for.
When you talk about the inner circle of Hollywood poohbahdom, there is no more inner than Ron Meyer, no one closer to and more connected to the people who ran Hollywood for longer.
There was the time when this group was utterly untouchable. A despotic ruler of a former Soviet republic could only dream of the job security and freedom from criticism that the rulers of Hollywood enjoyed. Now that is all gone. I've heard that when Meyer called Jeff Shell to tell him about the extortion attempt on Sunday night, the decision was made right then and there that he had to go. The most beloved member of a group who once owned Hollywood as much as anyone has every owned anything: out in one phone call.
This is also really the sunset of Easy Riders/Raging Bulls generation of moguls—the group that ascended to power in the late 70's and early 80's. Meyer may have been the last of them standing unscathed.
It's astonishing to survey the group of them, these men–pretty much all men—who for better or worse created modern Hollywood, and see how many now live in various degrees of exile. It's akin to the lukewarm to cold shoulder the Democratic party now gives to Bill Clinton (friend to many of the group) and for many of the same reasons. The era of these super-exec boomer inspirational leaders who were above the laws of man and god has passed.
Back in the 80's, hard-charging figures as far-ranging as Ovitz, Michael Eisner, and Jerry Bruckheimer turbo-charged the sleepy film industry and turned it a modern, globe-swallowing, diversified, fantastically lucrative giant machine.
But what was once an aggressive upstart attitude towards studio production has now calcified into bureaucratic bloat and complacency, leaving the studios as easy prey to the more nimble tech world, which is about the swallow the industry whole. Needless to say, the sense of entitlement that these masters of entertainment felt, the immunity from scrutiny, that page has well and truly turned.
One looks around at the generation: David Geffen is literally sailing off into sunset on his yacht, having to delete his Instagram account after nearly getting canceled in absentia. Ovitz is a pariah, drifting at the distant margins of Hollywood society. Eisner futzes around in various projects, still straining for relevance. Barry Diller is the most potent as a mogul, but seems to spend his time on the sidelines taking bitter shots at a business he no longer has a feeling for. Jeffrey Katzenberg goes through his personal odyssey trying to bring Hollywood to the mobile world. Who knows where Bob Daly and Terry Semel are now . . . . Spielberg sent running with his tail between his legs from a fight with Netflix over the Academy, once his personal playground . . . . Jerry Bruckheimer hanging in as David Ellison's in-house totem.
• How does this somehow go hand-in-hand with the Warner realignment, with the COVID shutdown, with the lingering Me Too fall out? How are these things all linked together?
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