Oscar-winning director flees to New York and claims: 'Hollywood is finished!'

The oscar-winning filmmaker says that Hollywood is dying in the wake of the Weinstein scandal.

Paul Haggis, the award-winning filmmaker behind Crash and Million Dollar Baby, has suggested that the Harvey Weinstein scandal may mark a major moment in Hollywood history and has made it clear that he believes that the industry would be far better off if the old guard were to fall away to make way for fresh talent.

Hollywood is finished!

“Los Angeles is a town run by a group of powerful corporations, the studios, and they inevitably want to make what they know they can sell. This means they often lag a few years behind creatively, ” he said to journalists this weekend. He said that the corporations were becoming complacent and far too dependent on a reliance of science-fiction and youth franchise reboots. “I love comic-book movies, but do we want a diet of only that? It is about money, of course. The studios have to make more than they did last year, so we have Fast and Furious number whatever, ” he said.

He desired to make films with more depth and intellectual substance that drew him away from Hollywood and towards New York, he claimed. “People have been hoping for a new trend of more serious American film-making for a while, ” he said. “I remember when I was Oscar-nominated for Crash in 2006, the other contenders were all serious films, Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night, and Good Luck and Munich, so I thought Hollywood had turned a corner. But people told me, rightly, that it was just an anomaly.”

An Open Secret: A documentary on Hollywood Pedophelia

According to Haggis, it is the insular nature of Hollywood that both inhibited risk-taking when it came to creativity in films and bad behavior such as that accredited to Harvey Weinstein who has been accused by a multitude of women of sexual harassment, assault and even rape in the past few weeks. “It is really hard for their innocent employees in New York, who worked hard and may well lose their jobs, but a lot of people are compromised by Harvey’s alleged actions, ” said Haggis, speaking of the Weinstein scandal. “Although everyone thinks it is vile behavior, you have got to focus on those who may have colluded and protected him. For me, they are as guilty as he is and in some cases more so, if I can say that. I mean, he was a predator, and a predator is a predator. But what about those who would rather look the other way?”

Haggis said that he believes that Weinstein is something of an anomaly in Hollywood and that he did not think that either sexual harassment or abuse were major problems in the industry. However, he conceded that he found Hollywood to be a ‘fairly sexist’ town and said, “It is not an innocent place and never has been.”

He also pointed out that while most of the predatory behavior that has come to light has been directed at women, that children were also at risk in the town. He cited both Corey Feldman and Corey Haim who made allegations of sexual abuse in the past. He says that no one took them seriously at the time, but now it was surely worth considering that their sensational claims were true. “Were people covering for pedophiles, too? We have to think that may have happened as well because no one speaks out about being abused just to benefit their career. I find it particularly terrible that people had their dreams held to ransom in that way, ” said Haggis.

This is not the first time that Haggis has dared to speak out against the Hollywood elite. He caused seven years ago when he took the difficult decision to cut ties with the controversial Church of Scientology which is known for its extraordinary power and influence in Hollywood. Following his decision to become an apostate and leave the church, Haggis spoke out powerfully against them in the Emmy winning documentary Going Clear when he said that he felt disappointed in the fraudulent façade of mystical hierarchy in the controversial faith.