"Once a major Hollywood player, director, and producer, Brett Ratner watched his standing evaporate after the Los Angeles Times published a 2017 investigation in which multiple women accused him of sexual harassment and assault. The allegations were severe and explicit, ranging from forcing women to watch him masturbate to, in Canadian actor Natasha Henstridge's account, coerced oral sex when she was 19."
"Hollywood isn't exactly short on disgraced directors - Bryan Singer, Joss Whedon, Max Landis, Woody Allen still, so on, so forth - and in theory, the transactional Trump administration might have turned Melania into an open call for any exiled filmmaker looking to regain currency. This is, after all, a presidency in which the incarcerated openly barter loyalty for pardons; recall that George Santos is happily Cameo-ing from his home in the Poconos instead of serving out a seven-year sentence for wire fraud."
Numerous disgraced directors exist in Hollywood, and the Trump era's transactional dynamics could have invited many to reclaim relevance via a Melania project. Practical considerations narrowed the choice to Brett Ratner. Ratner's reputation collapsed after a 2017 Los Angeles Times investigation in which multiple women accused him of severe sexual harassment and assault, including coerced sexual acts and forcing women to watch him masturbate. Ratner maintained long-standing ties to Donald Trump and a career focused on commercially successful, spectacle-driven films. The Melania project entered development after the 2024 election and attracted competitive bids from major studios before landing with Ratner.
Read at Vulture
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