April 1, 2005

Late on Thursday night, the phone rang with news that the Weinstein Brothers finally got the money to start their new company. The unexpected source is Regal Cinemas Owner and Ray financer Phil Anchutz, who will capitalize the pair to the tune of $2.35 billion.

Word is that Mark Cuban's plans to put digital into a large percentage of Landmark Cinemas convinced Anchutz that he had to get on the ball and move more aggressively to build his exhibition business, leaving his interest in being a filmmaker to the proven talents of the Weinsteins. Their new joint enterprise will be called The Safe Harbor Company for HARvey & BOb.

Left out of the deal is Comcast, which had promised up to $1.2 billion for the brothers to both start their new film company as well as laying out a series of cable channels meant to launch on the cable systems that Comcast controls. But Anchutz has committed to at least one "Safe Harbor Channel" and Disney has indicated that it is willing to license the Miramax library in its entirety to Safe Harbor for an undisclosed sum.

Safe Harbor Home Entertainment will launch the first-ever multi-level rating distribution service, releasing both PG and R versions of all of the Safe Harbor productions and acquisitions by contract. First up, Safe Harbor got Disney to agree to a 50/50 split on the PG-rated DVD of The Tarantino Collection.

In addition, the Weinsteins and Anchutz are in early discussions to purchase the Cincinnati Bengals with the intentions to move the franchise out of Cincinnati. But they are adding a new twist. They would like the team to play four home games in New York - in Shea Stadium - half of the year and its other four home games in Los Angeles, likely in The Coliseum, which they will build a dome over.

There is already a deal in place at Bravo for a new TV series, Project Red, which deals exclusively with films that are either shelved or stopped before production. Ben Affleck will host the show, which takes the Project Greenlight idea and turns it upside down, making the failed films far less expensive for Miramax while giving audiences a greater thrill by seeing more established careers slowly destroyed over the course of weeks.

In order to get Anchutz committed, the brothers agreed to start Safe Harbor Family, a family film division. The first project, which Anchutz' team has been developing for seven years, is Young Christ. Lasse Hallstrom will direct the story of a young Jesus Christ wandering around the middle east as a young man

The first film project that the main Safe Harbor label is expected to greenlight, amazingly with an eye to the 2005 Oscar season, is Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Moby Dick, starring Johnny Depp as Ahab, Samuel L. Jackson as Ishmael, and a CG whale to be performed on set by Andy Serkis.

After that, Anchutz unwillingness to give up rears its head with the Weinsteins committing to do their version of Around The World In 80 Days, even though the last remake failed to catch fire at Disney just last year. The film will be co-directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and produced by Don Murphy. The film will star Tarantino as Phileas T. Fogg, Kevin Smith as his sidekick, Passepartout, plus Uma Thurman, Carla Gugino, Rosario Dawson and Janeane Garofalo with cameos by Adam Sandler, Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Billy Crystal, Lauren Graham, Tina Turner, Jerry Lewis, Bill Murray and Laura San Giacomo. The plan is for the film to be rated R, due to nudity and extreme violence.

Also on tap, Bob Zemeckis will make Ray 2. In an expansion of the idea that Zemeckis embraced to make Cast Away and in a real commitment to the longevity of Safe Harbor, the film is scheduled to take 17 years to shoot, allowing Foxx to age slowly into the roll of the aging Ray Charles.

And Harvey Weinstein will finally get into the director's chair, helming the Chazz Palmentari-scripted Rob & Artie. The story about two brothers from a bad Chicago neighborhood who make it big in the music business by importing hits from Europe and marketing them in new and inventive ways, is said to be a real tear-jerker. Casting is not set, but Brad Pitt and Matt Damon are circling while Rose McGowan and Charlize Theron are leading candidates to play the love interests.

In a bit of a surprise, Safe Harbor agreed to buy back both The Great Raid and The Brothers Grimm from Disney for their full costs. MGM's Chris McGurk has agreed to pick up half the cost of the previously rejected films and to leave them for Sony to figure out how to sell.

Finally, Happy April Fools Day.

If you believed anything in the column today, you probably believe that Dick Wolf has been given Stacey Snider's job. That, like everything else in the column, is 100% made up and any relation to the truth is a horrible, horrible coincidence.

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