Barry Diller was full of wisecracks tonight at the PGA Awards.
In a rare Hollywood appearance, specifically onstage, the former Paramount CEO, Fox CEO and current Who Knew author took digs at Jack Warner, David Ellison, Harvey Weinstein as well as the guy he was presenting the PGA Milestone Award to, his amigo, Jason Blum.
Diller began, “Samuel Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor, Jack Warner — what would Jack Warner do if he knew he was being succeeded by a stunt pilot?” That latter dig being directed at Paramount CEO, David Ellison, who recently won the bid for Warner Bros.
Diller went on, “Cecil B. Demille and now Jason Blum.”
The Chairman and Senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group reminded the Fairmont Century Plaza ballroom full of producers “you also gave this award to Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves, so there it is. There is commonality with the greats.”
“DeMille made movies for $15,000, and so did Blum almost 100 years later. To say he’s cheap isn’t a characterization, it’s a defining attribute,” continued Diller.
“Take his approach to air travel, where instead of buying a first-class ticket for an overnight flight, Jason would buy three cheap seats, all together, bring an actual inflatable mattress on board the plane, and then horrify fellow passengers with the loud motor of his electric pump. But he’s serene in all this, as in all of his other cheap eccentricities. Jason’s an intermittent faster, in that he only eats food if the food is free, and as my wife once observed, when Jason’s on our boat, he behaves like a tourist at an all-inclusive resort.”
“I’m giving this award to Jason not because I like horror movies, I actually hate them, but because we’ve been friends since before he matriculated, if that’s the right word to describe working for Harvey Weinstein. How he found his groove after that is anyone’s guess, but he sure did find it. 300 films — made on the lowest pay scales in film history — but he also did something quite extraordinary in itself, and that’s helping artists tell stories and helping them make a lot of money. Along the way, and rarely, did the two go hand in hand,” exclaimed Diller.
Diller praised Blum for staying focused on his mission for low budget fare with high profit margins versus projects promising awards campaigns or tentpole franchises possibilities. “The shiny objects in this town are endless. Jason, though, stayed focused on scary and people betting on themselves,” said Diller.
In summing up Blum, Diller (who recently came out in his memoir) further ribbed the horror producer as a guy who’s “married with children, lots of them, and hoping that they don’t emulate his favorite pleasures like dressing in drag, wearing diamond jewelry, and riding a unicycle.”
“But Jason is this odd something of a Renaissance man. A true embodiment of, ‘A man can do all things if he will.’ And it is his will and his stick-to perseverance of what he believes in and how essentially honest and honorable has been that which makes me ever so glad to be able to present this award to him.”
Taking the stage, Blum exclaimed, “I think my biggest achievement is getting Barry Diller to the PGAs!”