distressed human assets

I was thinking that we need a name for the phenomenon where, for example, Ben Shapiro's media company is making a movie with Jonathan Majors because Majors was exposed as a serial domestic abuser (I guess "strong men don't hit women" is no longer part of the ostensible conservative value system), and then I ran across this phrase in a Hollywood Reporter article about Max Landis working with Paramount:

David Ellison-headed operations, from Skydance to now Paramount, have a history of picking up distressed human assets. Early on, former Pixar head John Lasseter was hired as Skydance’s animation chief after admitting “misteps” that made employees feel “disrespected and uncomfortable” at Pixar. Most recently, it made a deal to distribute Rush Hour 4, which would mark the big studio return of disgraced director Brett Ratner, who was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017 and also helmed the Melania documentary for Amazon.

Olympique de Marseille has been trying this but the suicide squad approach has still only gotten them to fourth place.

A distressed asset is something you can pick up for cheap, right? So if Ellison's business model is "We'll pay you one-fifth of what you used to be able to get, and maybe whatever piece of shit movie we put you in will turn a profit," I get it. I doubt anyone's sitting down with Jonathan Majors and saying, "You're awesome, and that bitch totally did you wrong! Here's a hundred million dollars just for being awesome."

Here's an interesting interview with a director who rewrote a script originally written by Max Landis, but his name is still on it because of union rules.

oh yeah for sure, the point of the phrase is these people are desperate/cheap talent. I do gotta wonder if with some of them (Ratner) it's still a bad deal, plus as the HR article I quoted that from points out, Paramount is already paying Danny McBride to write a GI Joe script, so paying Max Landis to do the same thing is...odd