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February 23, 2005Has anything more absurd ever been written in the pages of the New York Times?
The Weinsteins have 32 weeks before they leave Disney. 32 weeks. 22 films.
The studio currently has four films scheduled in the next nine weekends. It would be almost impossible for them to slot in more than a couple more in that period, starting now. That would make it 16 more films released in the following 21 weeks.
I cannot really even figure out why this silliness is being floated to the New York Times… forget about why it is being published as news. (I believe the reporter sharing the byline with Sharon Waxman is the new guy from Atlanta… yet another hire who has never covered the industry, David M. Halbfinger, proving in his first story why not knowing the turf is very, very dangerous for a serious reporter.)
In a breathtaking show of reporting malaise, with the exception of Proof, the only films referenced in the piece as scheduling surprises are movies that have had set releases in the next few months for a while now, including Mindhunters.
The most recent Miramax schedule:
This Weekend - Cursed
March 4 - NY/LA Only - The Best Of Youth and Dear Frankie
March 11 - Hostage
April 1 - Sin City
May 27 - Mindhunters
June 10 - The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl
July 29 - The Brothers Grimm
August 19 - Zu Warriors
August Undated - The Great Raid
September 2 - Ritual
September 16 - Alien Love TriangleThat's eleven releases currently scheduled. It includes only two "straight" releases as it is, which is to say movies that were made to be released somewhere near the date on which they are currently set for release. They are the two Rodriguez films, Sin City and Shark Boy & Lava Girl. The Times has them doubling that number.
What makes little to no sense about the story, when one thinks about it rather than just reporting what you've been told, is that it costs money to release movies… a lot of money in the summer. There is little advantage, given Disney's Blockbuster deal, to releasing a boatload of titles into exclusive releases (such as Undertaking Better or The Underclassman or even the surprisingly unmentioned An Unfinished Life) just to suggest that the titles have had a theatrical release. In fact, all but a handful of titles that don't already have a theatrical date will much more likely be written off or forced on the Weinsteins as the exit, along with the good stuff… which is probably why "Miramax sources" fed the Times this bizarre story.
Somehow lost in the need for a sensational - if incorrect - lead is the rest of the story that is real. Harvey and Bob are negotiating for what films they will take with them. Still unreported is the fact that the Weinsteins already have their funding locked, which is why the sudden spate of stories about their exit have cropped up. (Rumors today that the funding is contingent on a deal to purchase Lions Gate appear not to be true… though Lions Gate is the one remaining large library on the market it is also considered overpriced by most potential buyers right now.) People associated with films and development deals are appropriately nervous.
Of course, the Times has its own internal logic when describing the seven-month transitional arrangement that seems to be ready to occur, saying, "The arrangement has allowed for an amicable divorce instead of the open warfare that threatened only months ago." Of course, it was the New York Times leading the pack in suggesting open warfare was going to break out, when it was always clear to most insiders that an orderly transition was inevitable when as much as $200 million and lots of valuable properties were on the table as part of the Weinsteins' exit. The tone of the coverage harkens back to the aggressive stance against Michael Eisner, which always seemed to encourage a heavy duty Miramax-vs-Disney tone.
And, still, the New York Times leads the way in unnamed sources. Why? According to the Waxman/Halbfinger story, "Those executives declined to be identified for fear of jeopardizing the talks." According to the Laura Holson story delivered earlier yesterday, "The three people involved in the negotiations requested anonymity, fearing that disclosing their names might jeopardize the talks."
How many times and how many ways must the New York Times be played by the same fearful, unnamable sources before they wise up and start adhering to the journalism basics again?
Anyway… the story goes on to list projects that the Weinsteins might take with them, but fails to distinguish finished films like Derailed, which shot last October/November, from Anthony Minghella's Breaking & Entering, which has yet to be cast. The biggest problem with this is that it doesn't peak to the powerful leverage in these negotiations that both sides have in getting what they want.
Disney certainly respects the talents of the core group of Miramax filmmakers, including Tarantino, Rodriguez, Minghella and Kevin Smith. But you can't force an artist to create and Disney knows that well enough. Deals like the one for Breaking & Entering and Clerks 2 are guaranteed to go with the Weinsteins. But how will Disney's team count the value of those potential films?
The Clerks sequel is easier… they know the Home Entertainment value of the original and the numbers of the Jay & Silent Bob movie. If the profitability is high enough, the studio may retain a profit position on the sequel.
On a film like Derailed - which could just be getting hyped as a "most wanted" by one of the questionable heroes of Sharon Waxman's indie tome, "Rebels on the Backlot," Lorenzo DiBonaventura - they can look at the movie. They know what the price tag was… they know what they think it can make… take 10% off for good will… and "do you want to take it, Bob?" It should be that simple. Disney owns the film… would they want to acquire it now and how much would they want to pay?
There seems, to me, a very good chance that a film like The Brothers Grimm, which MGM dumped its partnership rights on for quality reasons last year, and is currently set for a July 29 release, could get postponed again and absorbed into Disney at a price. "You want to leave this $80 million turkey behind, guys? Well, at $40 million, maybe it's not such a turkey. Put $40 million back in the Disney column and we'll keep it and give it a nice release and make some money on home entertainment."
It's all very "The Price Is Right." There are no clear rules. There may be fiscal benefits to Disney in taking a write-down on some of these films. There may be as much as $200 million of flex room for the Weinsteins in the amount of money from this year's budget they don't spend, even after they've agreed to cut that number down to $350 million staring last October 1. The studio has not been in production, has cut staff and their only two acquisitions cost less than $10 million between them.
The other part of the story is that the Weinsteins have been trying to sell off existing projects for many months already. Most of what is left over - again, with the exception of the Rodriguez films and the distant potential of Proof and The Brothers Grimm - are leftovers in every sense of the word. Leaving those four films out, I don't see a cash investment in the rest of the existing product of much more than a couple of hundred million dollars… three hundred absolute max. Marketing those films would cost another $200 million, at least.
Who is looking to throw good money after bad?
The notion that any studio, but particularly one with a transition that allows a little breathing room, needs to "clear its pipeline" is a bit of a hoot. My guess is that the reason The Great Raid still hasn't been released is that the Weinsteins were waiting for an opportune moment to take the loss. On a film like Prozac Nation, which the studio has already dumped on DVD in a number of territories, the culprit is probably the distribution agreement, which required the studio to spend a certain amount or to open of a certain number of screens… which they didn't want to do because they didn't want to lose money.
So it is simple game of enormous contractual complexities. Both sides know what they want. Both sides know the cost of what they want. Both sides are guessing at the potential value of the properties that are still just development deals.
My guess - and this really is just a guess - is that Disney will create a Home Entertainment deal with whatever new entity the Weinsteins are creating that will have rights to - and a profit structure for - the next couple of films from each of the Weinstein-friendly directors, particularly on sequels, and leave theatrical completely to the Weinsteins, except maybe on the Spy Kids and Lava Girl franchises. Most of the development slate will probably be available for purchase by the Brothers at cost. There are odds and ends, like the 5% on Lord of the Rings or the profit position on Chris Columbus' Rent… those will be calculated. And as far as finished or near-finished product…well there is not much there that anyone really wants. Wolf Creek and The Matador were both overpriced - so sayeth the industry - but both films have the potential to recoup in home entertainment.
But these are just the details.
Harvey has already been staffing up for the new company, picking and choosing from the old company, though he is already losing people he would like to have kept on board.
The rumor that Mark Gill is going to lead the new Disney Miramax persists, even if it makes no sense whatsoever. Another thing that is going unreported is that the $300 million a year budget for New Miramax that was floated yesterday in the L.A and NY Times… not only is it almost 2.5 times as big as the budget that the Weinsteins started at Disney with, but it would make New Miramax one of the best financed (if not the best financed) of the Dependents from Day One. The entire production/acquisition bill for Fox Searchlight's Oscar-nominated 2004 line up of ten films was less than $120 million. Of course, marketing is expensive. But for $300 million, I think that Focus is the only Dependent division in that range. It will probably be more than the first year budget for The New Weinstein Co. and is certainly more than Lions Gate spends on theatrical.
Irony of ironies, by this time next year, there will be more "indie" distributors than majors… even if you just count the Dependents, since Sony has three such additional arms beyond Columbia.
In the meantime, journalists are scrambling to get the story before the story even happens. And as a result, they are reporting old news in many cases and reporting spin from unnamable sources, "scared to distract from negotiations," when their spin to the media is quite intentionally an effort to distract from the negotiations. "Hey! Harvey values Movie X!" Does anyone really think that Harvey Weinstein is such a bad poker player that he gives up his tells to "sources" that talk to the papers? Haven't we figured that game out yet? I mean, come on.
Wouldn't Harvey like to announce his exit from Disney on Monday morning, just hours after wining an Oscar for The Aviator, a movie Miramax did not produce or pay for, but did a masterful job of marketing and taking credit for? Yeah!
And if Disney is as smart as I think they are, they'll let him… whether he wins the award or not. Because the bottom line is the bottom line. And the media is the media. Taking a PR hit here is inevitable. The Weinsteins are too good at shaping the story for the media. But they'll take it and move along. And the real heat will be around their chosen successor. That choice will be far more complex and far more treacherous than these exit negotiations.
And as an added bonus, everyone has forgotten - or allowed their boredom to rule the day - regarding DisneyWar… no matter how hard the media sold that thing.
2005 is looking like the greatest year of film industry transition since the late sixties. I just hope that more outlets will wait for news to happen before reporting gossip as news. That's all.
READER OF THE DAY: JW NOT MARRIOTT writes: "I have railed before against critics in emails to you. However, Constantine brings up an interesting case. As a guy who has watched Angel and Buffy for years. Constantine seemed like a weird off-shoot of the Whedonverse than anything else. It's something familar, but not to critics.
To critics, a film like Constantine has no merit. I had to fast forward through the Ebert and Roeper review of the film due to the fact it made two intelligent men come off as rather elitist bores. Critics just do not take the time to digest a film like Constantine because most critics are too much into fictionalized COMPATIBLE/ COMPARABLE HUMAN misery than fictional demons and angels fighting for our souls type misery. Even if it somehow plays into a great philosophical version of human suffering a movie like Sideways could never even touch.
Thus leaving a movie like Constantine being panned by critics too uptight to unclench their asses to enjoy the film or either to elitist to delve deeper than the usual standard Oscar fare would have them delve. At least you try, Poland... other critics not so much.
There is so much great cinema, but from the look of it. You would think that it only comes out two months out of the year. Rather strange that occurance.
Have a nice day..."
And F'in G writes: "I know you never read "Hellblazer," but those who have know that the best person to play John Constantine as depicted in the books is Paul Bettany. Unfortunately, the movie was set in L.A. rather than London, and the movie made the character a dark-haired American rather than a blonde Brit. I know that comic book geeks are reputed as being overtly annoying in their desire for faithfulness in their comic book movies, but I think it was a real missed opportunity by having Keanu in the role rather than Bettany. "
E-ME: Can you smell the future?
The Case for Sideways
The Case for The Aviator
The Case for Million Dollar BabySundance Wrap-Up
Sundance Preview Part I
Sundance Preview Part 2
