The first Asian-American CEO of a major film studio sees his career journey end in scandal. Quiet and courteous. Those were the first two adjectives The New York Times used in 2014 to describe Kevin Tsujihara, the Japanese-American executive who had risen to CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment the previous year. Hollywood didn’t know what to do with this humble son of egg distributors in the San Francisco Bay Area, absent the flash, the histrionics, the showboating that so often defined executives in this land of hedonistic pleasure and artistry. Tsujihara was thriving, though, landing $450 million in financing for 75 new movies, the holy grail of a new Harry Potter franchise and two notable battles with a film studio titan. Yet his professional demise — which came to fruition with the 54-year-old’s resignation from Warner Bros. on Monday after leading the company to its most profitable year ever in 2017 — was already in writing as well. The film studio titan he jousted with? None other than the brash and vulgar Harvey Weinstein, who it turns out had more in common with Tsujihara than expected. And that half a billion in financing? It came from Brett Ratner, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least six women, and his business partner James Packer, the Australian billionaire who acted as a sexual fixer the night of Tsujihara’s career-ending sin. |