Late Thursday afternoon, Variety’s film editor tweeted out a  biting pronouncement:

This was quickly followed by a tweet from his colleague at variety.com:

What were they and other 5900 Wilshire Blvd. biz watchers* so peeved about? This article, by Deadline.com’s New York based reporter Mike Fleming, and in particular the following passage:

I’ve heard rumors about the possibility of Angelina Jolie having a conversation or two about directing it [50 Shades of Grey movie adaptation]. This has been buzzing around for a couple of weeks. The studio says that no discussions have been had, but they note that if she was interested, that the studio would be also.

Fleming of course previously work for many years at Variety. But there’s evidently no love lost when a former trade pal parks flimsy musings under the headline bait “‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Heating Up With Angelina Jolie Talk.”

*Correction: An earlier version of this item featured an embedded link to a tweet by Variety reporter Jeff Sneider, with the suggestion that it was in relation to this matter. He has kindly informed us that it was not. FishbowlLA regrets the error.

Previously on FishbowlLA:
THR Toots Alan Horn ‘Excusive’
Variety WebHound Sniffs Out Some Funny Deadline.com Business
Deadline.com’s Mike Fleming Shoots Down Variety Time-Stamp Accusations