The summer movie season is a pandemic-afflicted bust. But Hollywood is overcompensating with a real-life blockbuster: Starring a savvy young actress who takes down two powerful studio heads, it reads like a reboot of “Basic Instinct” meets “Fatal Attraction.” Despite a lackluster career, 28-year-old Charlotte Kirk snagged marquee headlines this week after toppling the four-decade …
The summer movie season is a pandemic-afflicted bust. But Hollywood is overcompensating with a real-life blockbuster: Starring a savvy young actress who takes down two powerful studio heads, it reads like a reboot of “Basic Instinct” meets “Fatal Attraction.”
Despite a lackluster career, 28-year-old Charlotte Kirk snagged marquee headlines this week after toppling the four-decade career of Ron Meyer — formerly one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood (having worked with stars like Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Cher) and, since 2013, the vice chairman of NBCUniversal.
Meyer, 75, admitted to settling a lawsuit with Kirk, whom he characterized as a woman with whom he had a “brief consensual affair” in 2012, while still married to his second wife, Kelly. The Los Angeles Times reported that Meyer paid Kirk at least $500,000 as part of a promised $2 million settlement in 2019.
In a statement this week, Meyer claimed that third parties “continuously attempted to extort me into paying them money” by threatening to publish false claims about Meyer or falsely implicate NBCUniversal in the ordeal, and that Kirk (whom he did not name) had “made false accusations against” him.
Kirk’s lawyer, who had no comment for The Post, told Variety that he’s “never done a settlement with Ron Meyer on anything.”
Meanwhile, last year, Kevin Tsujihara, 55, stepped down as the CEO of Warner Brothers Entertainment after it was revealed that he tried to get film auditions for Kirk, with whom he, too, had an extramarital affair.
Text messages — between Kirk, Tsujihara and others — leaked to The Hollywood Reporter in 2019 seem to suggest that Kirk’s sexual favors may have also helped grease a $450 million deal between Warner Bros. and RatPac-Dune Entertainment, a production company owned by two of her early benefactors: director Brett Ratner and billionaire James Packer, whom Kirk reportedly also dated. (Representatives for Meyer, Tsujihara and Packer did not return calls for comment. Ratner had no comment.)
Some of these power players have accused Kirk of “blackmail” and “extortion” in her desperate climb up the Tinseltown ladder.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, she wasted no time asking if Tsujihara had talked to his “guys” about a TV show she had read for.
Over the next year, communications show the two making plans — while Kirk also asked about auditions and Tsujihara seemed to grow increasingly weary of her demands.
In March 2015, Kirk angrily e-mailed him about a role she actually landed — presumably in the WB film “How to Be Single” — saying: “Kevin? A two liner?? U have got to be kidding me!!”
The Tsujihara affair ended, but Kirk walked away with a slightly larger part in 2018’s “Ocean’s 8,” also a Warner Bros. flick.
Kirk wasn’t only rubbing elbows with men at the top of the Hollywood heap — and insiders allege that her lesser-known lovers tried to extort the more famous one.
She also dated Joshua Newton, a low-budget director who cast her in the upcoming “Nicole & O.J.” in which Kirk plays Nicole Brown Simpson.
“She attempted to hit on my husband . . . Her networking style is pushy.”
– Jana Grazer
And she’s now engaged to Neil Marshall, who has directed episodes of “Game of Thrones” and “Westworld,” as well as a 2019 big-screen remake of “Hellboy.” He, too, has worked with Kirk, on her passion project “The Reckoning” — a horror film, co-written by and starring her and produced and directed by him. It opened the online Fantasia International Film Festival Thursday, after organizers canceled a Q&A with Kirk and Marshall.
“It’s clear ‘The Reckoning’ is meant to be a star vehicle for Kirk — she’s made up and shot like a model even while in a squalid prison . . .,” wrote BadFeelingMag.com. “But the film is simply too hokey to take seriously.”
Multiple sources told Page Six that Newton and Marshall separately attempted to extort Meyer — for money, introductions and work — leading to the ouster at NBCUniversal. They allegedly threatened to go public with Meyer’s affair with Kirk and the settlement he allegedly promised her after it ended.
Marshall and Newton deny the allegations; Newton was unreachable and Marshall did not reply to requests for comment. A source close to the matter said that Meyer has made complaints about both men to the FBI, along with one about Kirk.
Those who have worked with Kirk have praise for the actress.
“She is the best actress that [her acting teacher] had,” Jana Grazer said.
“She came to work, she did what she was supposed to do . . . professionally, she was very good,” said Jamison M. LoCascio, director of the 2017 drama “The Depths,” in which Kirk had a co-starring role. “We never saw any signs of [her personal drama]. She never came on to anyone. She flew out [to New Jersey] to do the movie from Los Angeles and paid her own expenses. Charlotte is a nice person.”
Too bad, then, that insiders say her career will likely never recover.
“They all shot themselves in the head,” said Blaylock. “[Kirk, Marshall and Newton] will have a hard time getting hired again. I wouldn’t hire them.”
