Hollywood: Damaged on Wall Street, Weak in Prime Time and Ignoring Tina Brown

But in June, Cerone’s three already-shot episodes for the 2008-2009 season were canned, and he was replaced by Jon Harmon Feldman, whose Big Shots didn’t last very long on ABC but who had worked before with Dirty Sexy Money’s exec producer, Greg Berlanti, on Dawson’s Creek. I would never have brought back the series: great cast, horrible story line. ABC’s TV bosses Anne Sweeney, Steve McPherson and Mark Pedowitz should have put this dog out of its misery.

Hollywood Ignores Tina Brown

It’s very hard in the public spotlight to have second acts, much less infinite acts like Tina Brown. (Remember when her Talk mag died from lack of interest, or her short-lived CNBC talk show received a zero rating?)

Now Brown may have blundered by falling back on that tired trick of a “Hollywood Power List” to help launch her new blog. “The idea is so 1980s. Both Premiere and EW have abandoned their lists, thank God, and Vanity Fair’s is totally different,” one Hollywood flack complained to me. “I think she wanted to stir up a frenzy. But a lot of us are saying, ‘Thanks but no thanks. We’re not going to participate. We don’t care if you list us or not.’”

I feel sorry for Brown’s likable L.A. rep Tom Tapp, who’s now starting to flop-sweat. First he sent around a blizzard of e-mails asking for meet-and-greets for what he described as “a Hollywood Power List, circa 2010,” where “the idea is that as the Industry changes rapidly, it’s more important to know who you should be in business with in two to three years than it is to know who’s on top right now. We’re speaking with all the agencies, the studios and players around town, as well as Silicon Valley. We’d love to come in sometime soon and talk to your best and brightest about the future of the Industry.”

But a lot of people and places have politely put him off or turned him down flat.

Now Tapp is sending out increasingly desperate-sounding e-mails to Industry flacks, begging for help. (Typical was this message: “Hey Man, We need to get moving on this. Any chance we can set something up in the two weeks?”)

The problem is Tina’s long history. Hollywood feels Brown is played-out because of the failure of her recent ventures, except book-writing. Most think the Web site is just another of her self-promotional stunts to raise her own profile.

And many still resent her cozy relationships with loathed former power players Mike Ovitz (whose agenda she slavishly followed at Vanity Fair), Harvey Weinstein (whose agenda she slavishly followed at Talk) and Barry Diller (whose agenda she’s following since he’s funding her new little venture).

Tina, I wish you all the best!