Harvey Weinstein Deliberately Killed Matt Damon’s $225M Movie Success to Avoid Paying Robin Williams Millions of Dollars Despite His Oscar Win
Behind the glitz and glam, Hollywood is but a vicious place. Whenever one thinks about Hollywood being a bad place, it cannot be without the monstrosity Harvey Weinstein pulled off. The drama on-screen is nothing compared to the drama off-screen. One would think reaching the top would exempt one from any back-stabbing and jeopardizing but that was not the case.
Legendary American actor Robin Williams was at the height of his career when he starred in 1997’s Good Will Hunting. And yet some factors or rather people at play tried to diminish the success he got from the film.
Good Will Hunting Did Not Reach Its Potential Success
The screenplay written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck blew everyone away with its honest depiction of life and friendship. Two youngsters trying to make it in Hollywood ended up having the great Robin Williams as a part of their film which later Williams an Academy Award for his performance as a therapist. Both critically and commercially, the film was a raging success; earning $225 million at the global box office.
But the catch is it could have done better and earned more. Allegedly, the film was withdrawn from theatres early. At the time when it was doing well, keeping it longer would have brought more money. But Harvey Weinstein didn’t want that. For himself, of course, but not for Robin Williams.
Harvey Weinstein Sabotaged the Height of Success Good Will Hunting Could Go to
In an interview with the Daily Beast, Kevin Smith who had a huge role to play in the making of Good Will Hunting at the time, shared his account of what occurred behind the scenes with the film’s distribution and release. He told the Daily Beast:
“I remember they pulled that movie out of theaters while it was still earning at the time. It was doing incredibly well, and the deal that they’d made with Robin was a high-percentage first-dollar gross—a movie-star deal—and it was great, because instantly by putting Robin in the movie their pre-sales paid for the whole f***ing film. So, the movie was paid for and then the movie was making money hand over fist and made over $100 million. From what I remember, Robin’s split would be even greater and he’d get a bigger percentage if it crossed $100 million, so every dollar the movie made at the theatrical box office would have to be split—I’m not sure if it was a 50/50 split—with Robin Williams. I was on the movie as a co-executive producer, so we were privy to some details, and I remember the day when ‘Good Will Hunting’ was leaving theaters and it felt weird because it was like, ‘Wait? There’s all this Oscar buzz, so why would you pull it if it was just making money?’ And they did it because keeping it in theaters meant that more of the money would go to Robin, whereas the moment it went to video the split wasn’t Robin-heavy. It was hamstrung because greed.”
Smith, who is now the house director at Miramax Studios shared his suspicions at length and the answer to why would Weinstein do this to Williams is simple: greed. He did not want to pay Williams so much of the share of the film revenue even though he was contractually bound to. But what he could do was lessen the revenue and he did do what was in his power to ensure Williams is deprived of his rightful. It is certainly not the worst of his deeds.
Source: Daily Beast
