Reading tea leaves

Readers of this blog have been generous with their tips in the comments section this week! Here is another revealing exchange on Richard Roeper's blog:

Sean O Says:
March 6th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

No clue why a decision was made to take Richard off At The Movies, especially since the “new” show isn’t revamped in the least, nor are the new hosts in any way different or more “hip” (if that’s what execs were going for). Without a doubt, agreement is universal that Ben Lyons was a major mistake. Ben Mankiewicz is fine, although it’s pretty obvious that he has no respect for Lyons’s opinion and so there’s no chemistry between them. Why not pair him with Richard? Instead, I can see the show going off the air completely within a few months and that’s a shame.

richard Says:
March 9th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

Just a note to Sean O.:

For the record, I wasn’t “taken off” the show. Disney offered me a very fair financial package to continue with the show for another three years. However, the executive who was put in charge of the show last year was–well, for now let’s just say I refused to tarnish the legacy of the show created by Roger and Gene, so I walked away. Some day I’ll talk about what happened behind the scenes last year. It was like being a character in a bad satire of the TV industry.

Best,

Richard

I can't help but think that they offered Richard a butt-load of money to work with Ben Lyons instead of Michael Phillips, and Roeper said "Um . . . you're joking, right?" And it all went downhill from there.

Anyway, I can't wait until he writes a book about this mess.