Relativity Media Issues Statement on Behalf of Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa
News Release from Relativity Media, LLC
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Oct. 20, 2015 -- The following release is being issued by Relativity Media LLC.
"Ryan Kavanaugh in my opinion has been overly helpful in trying to be able to help us create a film industry. We didn't know anything about it. We talked to him, (and) he literally contributed his entire staff to try to help us with bills at the Legislature. None of the results would have given him a direct benefit. It would just allow us to create a film studio," said Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa.
SOURCE Relativity Media LLC
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Secretly Recorded Conversation Opens Window on Movie Mogul's Relations With Maui County Government
Borreca 10-16-2015: Brian Perry, Maui News city editor, reported the details in the paper’s Sunday edition of how back in 2013, the county managing director, the county communications director and the mayor’s chief of staff met at a Kahului Starbucks with former Maui Film Commissioner Harry Donenfeld to chew him out.
Donenfeld taped the meeting.
The meeting was to dress down Donenfeld, who the county brass thought was irritating Ryan Kavanaugh, a Hollywood billionaire, part-time Maui resident and avid supporter of Mayor Alan Arakawa, who was still pitching a scheme for the state to subsidize the local film industry.
The original plan also called for state tax credits and millions in other goodies to help filmmakers, which included building film studios on Maui and Oahu.
Donenfeld was helping in the effort but had been more successful getting another company, Maui Film Studios, to set up a 21,000- square-foot soundstage in a leased warehouse.
When The Maui News ran a 2013 story about the non-Kavanaugh film studio, the billionaire and his firm, Relativity Media, went ballistic.
read ... Appease
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