Scott Rudin has stepped back from his role as producer “in film and streaming” projects, per a statement to Variety Tuesday. Days prior, Rudin similarly announced he would step back “from active participation on our Broadway productions effective immediately.”
Rudin’s full statement to Variety reads:
“When I commented over the weekend, I was focused on Broadway reopening successfully and not wanting my previous behavior to detract from everyone’s efforts to return. It’s clear to me I should take the same path in film and streaming. I am profoundly sorry for the pain my behavior has caused and I take this step with a commitment to grow and change.”
As Variety notes, he doesn’t specify what taking “the same path in film and streaming” would entail; ongoing projects of Rudin’s include Netflix’s The Woman In the Window and A24’s The Humans.
On Sunday, The Music Man star Sutton Foster joined a chorus of voices in the industry against Rudin’s involvement in productions in film and the stage, saying in an Instagram Live that “the only positive outcome is the one that is happening,” and that co-star Hugh Jackman “feels exactly the same way.” According to an earlier report in the Hollywood Reporter, Foster had allegedly threatened to leave the production if Rudin stepped down.
Variety also reports that in a social media post on Sunday, “the twin brother of former Rudin assistant Kevin Graham-Caso,” who has since passed, called for “real consequences” for Rudin’s treatment of employees, and that emails seen by Variety corroborate the allegations of an abusive workplace during Graham-Caso’s employment with the producer. Among those claims? That Rudin had verbally assaulted staff, thrown objects at them, and subjected employees to extreme fits of anger in meetings, public areas, and in private conversations.
