UPDATE (9:58 p.m.): Thanks to one of our readers for pointing out that “The Reader” has been removed from The Weinstein Company’s official site.  Could it mean that Weinstein will fold after all?  Could the pain of getting a publicity team in place, dealing with Rudin’s all-in public play and general bad buzz make TWC see the light and move the film to 2009?  We’ll see…

EARLIER: I love Scott Rudin.  All along, throughout this whole nasty affair, I have hoped he would prove his balls are bigger than Harvey’s and I think he’s done that now.

Patrick Goldstein is reporting that the producer has taken his name off of Stephen Daldry’s “The Reader,” which was suddenly jerked into the 2008 Oscar season by Weinstein Company honcho Harvey Weinstein, a move read by most in the industry as a gluttonous attempt at securing some Oscar glory this year.  With “Revolutionary Road” and “Doubt” already at the center of the season’s buzz cycle, the last thing Rudin needed, or wanted, was to have to split his attention a third way — let alone a way that would have been abandoned by its own star as well.

Yes, it’s true.  Kate Winslet would not have hawked “The Reader” against her husband, Sam Mendes’s “Revolutionary Road” (in which she also stars).  Director Stephen Daldry himself had to respond diplomatically to the entire charade of Rudin and Weinstein kissing and making up in public, only to have before-the-fact private emails spread across the net by an industrious blogger.

I’ve made my opinion of this fiasco known, and I definitely don’t think I was alone.  In fact, I know I wasn’t.  Weinstein scrambled to put together a publicity team but likely found a lot of road blocks, and to Rudin, it had to have been a painful march toward the inevitable:

“The Reader,” produced by Alan Smithee.

Goldstein reports:

In recent days, negotiations had apparently taken a turn for the worse. Upset with Weinstein and worried that many of his long-standing talent relationships would be harmed, Rudin decided to separate himself from the project. Daldry remains contractually obligated to complete the film, though it’s uncertain of how he will complete the film without Rudin, a longtime collaborator with both Daldry and David Hare, who were the creative team on “The Hours.”

And the closer, which says it all:

Whatever the root cause, this is another body blow to “The Reader,” which loses a strong producer who is always a major force during awards season. Rudin will continue as producer of two other year-end pictures, “Revolutionary Road” and “Doubt.”

Personally, I’m just glad Goldstein got this scoop and not Nikki Finke.

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