Au Revoir, Miramax - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso: cartoonishly racist and homophobic, but I'm a straight white male > Au Revoir, Miramax

FirstCongoWar: Aug 21, 2002; Hellcat Burns Down Alaska.
Iron Man says "Not my fault."
Hellcat says "Is too."

It looks like Miramax is being, for all practical purposes, shut down. I can't say I'll miss them too much, but they tend to release one or two films a year that I really enjoy. Hopefully other studios can pick up the slack.

Do you guys think this is an isolated incident or part of a larger trend?

/Film story:

quote:

This has been coming for some time, and after recent shakeups at Disney, is really no great surprise. Now Daniel Battsek, the current president of Miramax, has announced that he’ll step down at the end of January 2010. At the same time, Disney will relocate the label from New York City to Disney’s headquarters in Burbank, CA, where they’ll reduce Miramax’s output to just three films a year. The label that launched Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith and was the biggest face of the ’90s indie explosion is basically dead.

OK, the real end of the era hit four years ago, when the Weinstein brothers left Miramax, the company they built into an indie juggernaut. The years since then have been an extended coda for Miramax as it soldiered on at Disney. We’ve known for some time that Miramax would be cutting back, and that move was seen as part of the death knell of the indie in general. But Battsek’s exit is a surprise, as Disney had recently said that he would “continue to oversee all aspects of creative, development, production and business and legal affairs.” Corporate climates change fast.

While Miramax wasn’t truly indie since Disney bought into it in 1993,the company the Weinsteins built into the most recognizable face of ‘indie’ film remained a player post-Weinstein. Gone Baby Gone, No Country For Old Men, The Queen, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: all Miramax. Now THR reports that Battsek is exiting and that only about 20 jobs will remain. This all comes after a rough year for the company: Adventureland, Extract, Cheri and The Boys Are Back were all underperformers.

Where will the indie culture be in a few years? The big-ticket indie represented by Miramax is almost a dinosaur. While Fox Searchlight, Focus Features and Sony Pictures Classics are still doing well, none of those are actually independent, and there’s been a great deal of commentary in the past six months about the death of the American indie. But if it is truly dying, then how did we get Big Fan, World’s Greatest Dad, Precious, We Live in Public, That Evening Sun, Black Dynamite (bought by Sony Classics, but not made by them) and many other true indies this year? The landscape is changing, and fast, but it isn’t dying. This is a changing of the guard, if a difficult one.

# ? Nov 02, 2009 19:43

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# ? Nov 22, 2009 10:53

therattle: Jul 24, 2007

FirstCongoWar posted:

Do you guys think this is an isolated incident or part of a larger trend?

Part of a larger trend which has been going on for some time and has been discussed at some length here.

# ? Nov 02, 2009 19:52

CinnamonToastFunk: Nov 11, 2008; "He is ill clothed that is bare of funk."
--Pimpjammin Funklin

Serves the bastards right for never releasing The Whole Bloody Affair or the theatrical cut of Grindhouse in the US.

e:

quote:

Battsek’s

CinnamonToastFunk fucked around with this message at Nov 02, 2009 around 23:16

# ? Nov 02, 2009 22:38

TheTofuShop: Aug 28, 2009

Miramax? I thought they only did classy pictures, like "The Piano" and "The Crying Game".

# ? Nov 02, 2009 23:01

Paul Allen: Sep 22, 2004; Is that a raincoat?

TheTofuShop posted:

Miramax? I thought they only did classy pictures, like "The Piano" and "The Crying Game".

Yea well, once they made "She's All That," everything went to hell.

# ? Nov 02, 2009 23:53

Colonel Whitey: May 22, 2004; This IS a tasty burger.

CinnamonToastFunk posted:

Serves the bastards right for never releasing The Whole Bloody Affair or the theatrical cut of Grindhouse in the US.

Speaking of which, does this news mean that there is more or less chance of these coming out?

# ? Nov 03, 2009 00:00

Egbert Souse: Nov 06, 2008; If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

With The Weinstein Company also fizzling out, I wonder where a lot of the imports like Cinema Paradiso and Like Water For Chocolate are going to.

# ? Nov 03, 2009 00:29

Sporadic: Dec 03, 2005; i'm afraid i can't help it

Colonel Whitey posted:

Speaking of which, does this news mean that there is more or less chance of these coming out?

Considering that The Weinstein Company own the rights to both, I doubt it will affect them in anyway.

# ? Nov 03, 2009 00:35

CPL593H: Oct 28, 2009

CinnamonToastFunk posted:

Serves the bastards right for never releasing The Whole Bloody Affair or the theatrical cut of Grindhouse in the US.

e:

If you have Comcast every now and again the theatrical version of Grindhouse pops up in the On Demand section. They even have it in Widescreen. It also plays on Encore now and again.

As for the news about Miramax, it's unsuprising. But the good news is now we can look forward to more mediocre crap!

# ? Nov 03, 2009 01:36

Ape Agitator: Feb 19, 2004; Soylent Green is Monkeys

Colonel Whitey posted:

Speaking of which, does this news mean that there is more or less chance of these coming out?

Even if the studio totally folds up shop someone will have their catalog and make money selling Blurays or holographs or brain implants or whatever as long as they can.

# ? Nov 03, 2009 02:26

schmuckfeatures: Oct 27, 2003

Kind of a shame really. I do feel like there's so much unexplored indie potential out there -- i.e. the whole DV Rebel crowd. So it's sad to see an indie producer/distributor go under.

CinnamonToastFunk posted:

e:

quote:
Battsek’s

I'm glad I'm not the only one who picked up on that.

# ? Nov 03, 2009 05:14

sporklift: Aug 03, 2008

I bet indie films will die off but other cool film styles will take their place ok. RIP miramax.

# ? Nov 03, 2009 10:34

therattle: Jul 24, 2007

Ape Agitator posted:

Even if the studio totally folds up shop someone will have their catalog and make money selling Blurays or holographs or brain implants or whatever as long as they can.

Yes. It isn't even like Miramax is going under - it's just being subsumed into Walt Disney Motion Pictures. All of their films that they previously released and still have rights to will continue to be distributed through WDMP.

As for TWC, most if not all distribution agreements do not provide for termination in the event of insolvency/bankruptcy -they'll be sold off either prior to or after a bankruptcy/insolvency and continue to receive distribution. Someone like Lionsgate or Summit would probably love to pick up the TWC library.

# ? Nov 03, 2009 10:44

NeuroticErotica: Sep 09, 2003; Perform sex? Uh uh, I don't think I'm up to a performance, but I'll rehearse with you...

slashfilm posted:

Where will the indie culture be in a few years? The big-ticket indie represented by Miramax is almost a dinosaur. While Fox Searchlight, Focus Features and Sony Pictures Classics are still doing well, none of those are actually independent, and there’s been a great deal of commentary in the past six months about the death of the American indie. But if it is truly dying, then how did we get Big Fan, World’s Greatest Dad, Precious, We Live in Public, That Evening Sun, Black Dynamite (bought by Sony Classics, but not made by them) and many other true indies this year? The landscape is changing, and fast, but it isn’t dying. This is a changing of the guard, if a difficult one.

God, the guys from Slashfilm are retards. This is the whole, "If Global Warming is real, then how come it's cold outside?" argument. Yes, these films do physically exist, but the financials are awful - Precious was made for $10M and sold for $5.5M, We Live In Public is self-distributed at a huge loss, etc, etc, etc. There's a ton of brilliant indies on the circuit now without distribution who are dying for a DVD/VOD deal, but the ones that are being offered right now are not even worth the time and effort that would be put into it. A couple of releases did make it to the screen, but there's a lot out there that isn't being seen.

Egbert Souse posted:

With The Weinstein Company also fizzling out, I wonder where a lot of the imports like Cinema Paradiso and Like Water For Chocolate are going to.

Nowhere.

sporklift posted:

I bet indie films will die off but other cool film styles will take their place ok. RIP miramax.

What does that even mean?

# ? Nov 04, 2009 08:51

The Monarch: Jul 08, 2006; How do I get a OUTSIDE LINE?!

NeuroticErotica posted:

What does that even mean?

He's confusing the quasi-genre "indie" with independent films.

# ? Nov 04, 2009 18:44

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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso: cartoonishly racist and homophobic, but I'm a straight white male > Au Revoir, Miramax