[MAIL] As the wooden boards are taken down from shopfronts and studio lots grind slowly back to life, Hollywood is basking in an unseasonable heatwave. The famous boulevards shimmer in 40C haze and warm Santa Ana winds fan the Beverly Hills mansions.
Shaken by #MeToo, paralysed by Covid-19, the $50 billion film industry is finally emerging from a four-month lockdown — only to find a new and very different world, where tension is rising as surely as the thermometer.
A revolution is under way. White actors are being fired. Edicts from studio bosses make it clear that only minorities — racial and sexual — can be given jobs.
A new wave of what has been termed by some as anti-white prejudice is causing writers, directors and producers to fear they will never work again. One described the current atmosphere as 'more toxic than Chernobyl', with leading actors afraid to speak out amid concern they will be labelled racist.
The first sign came with one of the most powerful black directors in Hollywood, Oscar-winning Jordan Peele — the man behind box office hits such as Get Out and Us — stated in public that he did not want to hire a leading man who was white.
'I don't see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie,' Peele said. 'Not that I don't like white dudes. But I've seen that movie before.'
As one studio executive responded privately: 'If a white director said that about hiring a black actor, their career would be over in a heartbeat.' Few doubt it.
Peele is more vocal than most about his hiring policy, but his outlook is increasingly widespread. Dozens of producers, writers and actors have spoken to The Mail on Sunday about the wave of 'reverse racism' pulsing through the industry.
For if the very public Black Lives Matter protests have polarised America, the silent fallout has now reached Hollywood.