Yesterday morning Deadline‘s Mike Fleming quoted Monuments Men director-star-cowriter George Clooney about Sony shareholder Daniel Loeb, who recently ripped into Sony honchos Amy Pascal and Michael Lynton for the tanking of After Earth and White House Down: “I’ve been reading a lot about Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund guy who describes himself as an activist but who knows nothing about our business,” Clooney began, “and he is looking to take scalps at Sony because two movies in a row underperformed? When does the clock stop and start for him at Sony?
“Why didn’t [Loeb] include Skyfall, the 007 movie that grossed a billion dollars, or Zero Dark Thirty or Django Unchained? And what about the rest of a year that includes Elysium, Captain Phillips, American Hustle and The Monuments Men? You can’t cherry-pick a small time period and point to two films that didn’t do great. It makes me crazy.