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Miramax

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in the cannes

What's Stopping Cannes From Embracing Bleak New Julianne Moore Film?

The Cannes rumor mill is whirring at full speed again today as the trades pick up whispers that the Julianne Moore/Mark Ruffalo drama Blindness is likely to occupy the opening-night slot. The Toronto Star is saying it's a done deal, but it's not official, and we're not so sure; with barely two weeks remaining before the May 14th opener, word over the Defamer transom suggests that Blindness is bad enough to make festival programmers wait — and make distributor Miramax stall — before committing the plum spot to a stinker.

But isn't this the same festival that opened in 2006 with The Da Vinci Code? Just how bad is "bad"?

More »

10:30 AM on Tue Apr 29 2008
By STV
2,458 views, 7 comments

Latest by mrtrailsafety: Mark Rufallo is shorthand for cinematic boner-killer. more »

weinstein watch

Weinsteins Set New Standard for DVD Oblivion

With interests including Halston, A Small World and, well, the Weinstein Company, the post-Miramax Weinstein brothers have proven their uncanny ability to diversify, crash and burn as well as any moguls this side of Charles Keating. No reversal of fortune is complete, however, without a boutique DVD label and a few classics freshly extracted from Harvey Weinstein's TiVo:

The Miriam Collection, named after the brothers' mother, launched in late January with the release of one of the last great epics not previously available on DVD, Anthony Mann's El Cid.

More »

12:11 PM on Thu Feb 28 2008
By STV
1,774 views, 5 comments

Latest by The Authority: 1. Tarantino 15 years from now.2. It must suck, having a head that looks an awful lot like an old man's silvering testicle. more »

trade roundup

Trade Round-Up: Cruise To Return To Birthplace Of Controversial Romance

· Paramount and Tom Cruise will premiere M:i:III in Rome on April 24, a fitting tribute to the city that so warmly hosted hosted the coming out party for the world's most suspicious relationship. [Variety]
· William H. Macy will class up Touchstone's City Slickers Meets The Hell's Angels flick Wild Hogs, joining a casting-by-dartboard ensemble of John Travolta, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence. [THR]
· Disney pushes Mel Gibson's Apocalypto from a late summer to a Dec. 8th release, perhaps downgrading the film from "blockbuster" to "holiday heartwarmer" or "Oscar bait" status. The studio is also considering dubbing the movie from Mayan into its proprietary Atlantean dialect, hoping the move from obscure to fictional language might impress Academy voters. [Variety]
· ABC finally proves that not everything can be a hit following Desperate Housewives, as new series What About Brian shed 27% of its cherished key demographic viewers. [THR]
· The casting of Kate Winslet in Elton John's CGI Gnomeo and Juliet (just what it sounds like—Shakespeare with "tacky garden gnomes") may have saved the project from the cutest circle of Miramax's development hell [Variety]

12:46 PM on Mon Apr 17 2006
By Mark
46 views, 1 comment

Latest by Bubba Barney: 'What About Brian?' tanked because it was squatting in 'Grey's Anatomy's' spot. If they had advertised what the show was to be about a little more, people might have stuck around. That's how I got in to 'Grey's' in the more »

weinsteins

'Chicago' Producer Suspicious That $10 Million 'Jazz Hands' Budget Drawn From His Cut Of Profits

A producer of Chicago—the swansong of Miramax's heyday, when the Weinsteins would throw enough blinding sequins, stars and money at audiences and Academy voters to distract them long enough to scoop up all the Oscars—is suing the studio for cheating him out of what he claims is $10 million in his share of the profits: More »

11:52 AM on Tue Mar 21 2006
By Seth
76 views, 1 comment

ben affleck

Ben Affleck Does Bare Minimum For Miramax

Ben Affleck's been a movie star long enough to fully understand movie premiere etiquette. For example, if he's somehow obligated to show his face at an opening because of unavoidable political reasons (i.e., his new Miramax boss's first film is screening), he knows that no one will even notice that he snuck out before the movie began if he leaves behind some photographic evidence of his presence: More »

5:36 PM on Mon Feb 27 2006
By Mark
175 views, 1 comment

miramax

Meet The New Boss, Not As Nuts As The Old Boss

With Miramax releasing the Tsotsi, the first movie of the Daniel Battsek regime this weekend, it's a convenient time to discuss How The New Guy Is Not As Crazy As The Weinsteins. Offers the LAT: More »

10:16 AM on Thu Feb 23 2006
By Mark
293 views, Comment

oscars

Lionsgate Gambles Millions On 'Crash'

The Envelope reports that Lionsgate had to disclose exactly what its been spending on its For Your Consideration assault for Crash, letting us know exactly what the studio is willing to spend to buy itself an Oscar. The total's up to $4 million (against the movie's reported $6.5 million budget) for the entire awards-season campaign, with the last couple of million coming after the movie snagged its nominations in the only contest that matters: More »

1:23 PM on Mon Feb 13 2006
By Mark
72 views, Comment

oscars

Harvey Weinstein All Broken Up Over 'Proof' Snub

The deadline for Academy members to cast their votes might be weeks away, but we're ready to call one of the races right now. And the Oscar for Most Disingenuous Quote In Response To An Awards Snub goes to...Harvey Weinstein, for Proof, as he tells the NY Observer: More »

9:54 AM on Wed Feb 1 2006
By Mark
180 views, Comment

weinsteins

Samantha Morton Fails Harvey's F-Test

Many things, it seems, went wrong with The Brothers Grimm, one of 2005's more resounding box office bombs. Big-budget movie production is a delicate, interconnected affair, so who's to say that an error in producer Harvey Weinstein's fuckability calculus, which led to casting little-known actress Lena Headley instead of an Oscar-nominated treasure, didn't contribute to its failure? From The Scoop: More »

9:53 AM on Wed Dec 14 2005
By Mark
225 views, 4 comments

harvey weinstein

Weinstein Flips Disney The Bird On His Way Out The Door

Is there any colder dish of revenge than one served from the grave? True, Harvey Weinstein's final all-bomb slate of Miramax releases may not look great lumped together on his IMDb profile, but the demonic jollies he's no doubt getting over Disney's $313 million cliff-dive more than makes up for it: More »

8:18 AM on Fri Nov 18 2005
By Seth
114 views, 1 comment

trade roundup

Trade Round-Up: Spielberg To Make Video Games With Disappointing Happy Endings

· Steven Spielberg makes a deal with gaming juggernaut Electronic Arts to develop three original video game franchises. EA will own the rights to games, and Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment first-look development rights for TV and Film. The first game is already in the works, and will revolve around a hugely successful director's attempts to keep his out-of-control star from terrorizing depressed new mothers and ruining the opening of their summer blockbuster. [Variety]
· True of False: The Hollywood Reporter really, really likes Jodie Foster. Have you ever seen a salad tossed in true-false form? You have now. [THR]
· Steve Carell sets up two projects with Universal, ensuring that he will have steady work well into the next decade. One is from Carell's original pitch, the other, according to one of its writers, "[I]s for Steve to play the most Caucasian man in America, who's sent to juvenile prison for a petty crime he committed as a kid. Suddenly this suburban drip is surrounded by 11-year-old bad-asses." Ooh, watch the uptight cracker get menaced by 11-year-old bad-asses of color! [Variety]
· Jerry Bruckheimer buys the rights to the sports comedy Ballers, assigns his staff to determine a plausible way that pro footballers might explode spectacularly. [THR]
· What's left of Miramax buys the North American rights to The Queen, a film about the royal family after Princess Diana's death, based on a scene from a particularly moving commemorative dinner plate. [Variety]

11:08 AM on Fri Oct 14 2005
By Mark
92 views, Comment

trade roundup

Trade Round-Up: Don Johnson Looking For A Heartbeat And A Job

· By way of review, enjoy the trades' coverage of yesterday's Paramount Classics bloodletting. Optional: Chatter about Lions Gate's Tom Ortenberg redecorating an office on the Paramount lot. [Variety, THR]
· Not having had their fill of humiliation and abuse back in the good ol' days of Miramax, survivors Eric Roth and Barry Littman sign up for another tour of duty with the Weinsteins at the Weinstein Co. [Variety]
· Don Johnson unemployed: The WB cancels the this-should-really-be-about-a-jailbait-porn-publisher drama Just Legal. Also, Supernatural gets a full season pickup. [THR]
· Weinstein Survivor Update, Part II: Former Dimension guy Andrew Rona acquires his first project at Rogue Pictures (the "futuristic action thriller" Doomsday), resists the reflexive urge to pick up a phone to get chewed out by Bob Weinstein. [Variety]
· ABC buys a one-hour dramedy script inspired by the music of Diane Warren, about a songwriter who specializes in love songs but—get ready to have your neck snapped with surprise—has a messy love life. Yeah, we didn't see that one coming, either. [THR]

10:52 AM on Fri Oct 7 2005
By Mark
133 views, Comment

disney

And Then There Were None: A MiramaxClassic Farewell Party Update

Another former MiramaxClassic employee shares further heartstring-tugging details about their impromptu "Drink-the-Kool-Aid" farewell party Thursday night at Barney's Beanery:
The reunion/get-together idea started out as something of a lark amongst a small group of former Miramax employees who sent out an Evite over the internet. No one could have expected that the Evite would circulate around town so quickly and that it would rally a turnout of nearly 300 while also motivating the New York Miramax office to pull together a simultaneous party. As Harvey and Bob leave Miramax at the end of this week, the Alumni Reunion idea was just a great excuse to get everyone together to relive some of the best parts the Miramax experience. The Miramax that we know will always be about the people, the parties and the shared experience of working in a crazy, chaotic environment with the most talented, visionary and hard-working people in Hollywood.

So that's it? What about Harvey drunkenly sharing some Gwyneth-pooping-her-pants-on-the-Shakespeare in Love-set stories? Or Bob emerging from the little girls' room dressed only in Catherine Zeta-Jones' costume from the Chicago finale?! C'mon people, work with me here! More »

4:35 PM on Mon Sep 26 2005
By Seth
73 views

disney

Harvey Weinstein Flips Us the French-Manicured Bird


There's all kinds of goodies in the Defamer tip box: Ben & Jerry's coupons, Peruvian currency, little notes that say 'Next time, don't screw up my order.' But once in a while, there's something truly special, like this report of a MiramaxClassic staff reunion. Attended by Harvey Weinstein himself:
[Thursday] night I was at a Miramax reunion party at Barney's Beanery of all places. Everyone from exiled executives now running rival studios to bitter ex-assistants to the mailroom guy to even the security guard were there. Even Harvey himself showed up.
I have so many questions I'm about to vomit. What was the tone?! I'm imagining something akin to the French Quarter pub that stayed open while Katrina wailed outside. Did the bitter assistants organize a Stonewall-esque uprising against the man who once pelted full Diet Coke cans at their heads? ("Out of the closets and into the streets! And into rival-studios and onto their phones!") I want full reports from all in attendance (and one of those Harvey masks, please). More »

2:39 PM on Mon Sep 26 2005
By Seth
1,295 views

trade roundup

Trade Round-Up: ESPN Goes Hollywood

· The new-look, post-Weinstein Miramax looks to roar back to relevancy and make a splash at the Toronto film festival by acquiring...a documentary about girls' basketball. [Variety]
· ESPN will branch out from Bristol with offices in a new Los Angeles entertainment center (think ESPN Zone on steroids—a lot of steroids) being built across from Staples Center. The new facility should help the network's ESPN Hollywood coverage become at least 200 percent more pointless and annoying. [THR]
· House executive producers Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs move from NBC Universal to Fox; Fox's Peter Liguori calls the producers "monster talents" with whom he'd "like to make out with, all day, every day." [Variety]
· On a slow news day, sometimes it's fun to dive down into the deepest recesses of the casting notices and see what kind of bizarre bioluminescent news lives there: Devon Sawa and Matthew Lawrence sign on to star in the sci-fi/horror flick Hunter's Moon. [THR]
· Simon Baker joins Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in Fox 2000's The Devil Wears Prada. We feel somewhat ashamed that we have no idea who Simon Baker is, even after reviewing his IMDb profile. [Variety]

11:43 AM on Fri Sep 16 2005
By Mark
255 views

trade roundup

Trade Round-Up: ABC First To Resurrect Pope

· Variety and THR offer their tributes to Peter Jennings. Mercifully, Var doesn't say that Jennings "ankled" his mortal coil. [Variety, THR]
· DreamWorks sends a "vote of confidence" by extending the contracts of production president Adam Goodman and producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, bolting down the furniture on the Titanic before prospective buyer Universal can rearrange it. [Variety]
· Charlie and the Chocolate Factory continues its impressive run at the international box office. [THR]
· Props are due: ABC is first out of the gate with a John Paul II biopic, which Var headlines "ABC's Up With Papal." Nicely played. [Variety]
· Bravo tacks on two more episodes to their order of Being Bobby Brown, giving the world an "inside look" at the homes where the phrases "Hell to the no" and "dootie bubble" were born. [THR]
· Miramax's production co-president Jon Gordon will play out the string on his contract before taking the same job with Universal. We loved his scene-stealing work on the first season of Project Greenlight. [Variety]

11:56 AM on Mon Aug 8 2005
By Mark
82 views

trade roundup

Trade Round-Up: Germans Take Lindsay Lohan Hostage

· German movie theater chains protest the Shrinking Home Video window by boycotting Herbie: Fully Loaded, which is scheduled to appear on DVD an unacceptable four months after its theatrical debut. We can't approve of the Germans holding Lindsay Lohan hostage in their business drama. [Variety]
· We're not going to let ourselves get excited about this (Ed. note—Pleasepleaseplease let it be awesome], but there is now a Voltron movie in development. The nerd is us is "forming the sword" in our pants, but we're still ready to be withered by disappointment. [THR]
· Now that Daniel Battsek has been installed as president at the new-look Miramax, they're ready to get back into the acquisitions game. Sadly, we fear that the hobbled studio may never fully regain its ability to wildly overpay for festival movies. [Variety]
· After months of languishing in the limbo of untitledness, Steven Spielberg's upcoming movie about the 1972 Munich Olympics finally has a name: Munich. Sometimes inspiration is just waiting for you to give up and go with the obvious. (Trust us, we know.) [THR]
· NBC flinches first in game of chicken with Fox's celebrity American Idol, shelves its I'm a Celebrity But I Wanna Be A Pop Star. Even though he's not directly involved, we expect CBS's Les Moonves to release a statement calling NBC's Jeff Zucker a "pussy." [Variety]

11:00 AM on Tue Jul 26 2005
By Mark
328 views

miramax

Meet The New Harvey Weinstein

The press releases are flying as Disney has finally, officially named Daniel Battsek (don't pretend you don't know that he's Executive Vice President/Managing Director of Distribution and Production for Buena Vista International) as the new president of what's left of the lean-and-mean Miramax. Effective immediately, Battsek begins a tenure of being referred to as "the new Harvey Weinstein," whether or not he actually presides over a fresh reign of Weinstein-style terror. More »

11:50 AM on Mon Jul 25 2005
By Mark
385 views

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