So the economy is slowly getting better and the tides are shifting, right? Mmm, maybe not so much yet. As you likely heard late last week, Disney lowered the boom on their indie specialty-film wing Miramax.
While they didn’t shutter the company entirely, the small indie-house that only does about five movie a year with about 75 employees will be reduced to only putting out two movies a year and layoffs will certainly forthcoming.
It’s a shame, as Miramax, at least when it was under the Weinsteins essentially created the indie, mini-major that was capable of penetrating the mainstream conversation and even somehow managing to topple “Saving Private Ryan,” from winning its seemingly-inevitable best picture Oscar in 1999 (somehow, Harvey’s Oscar grease magic helped “Shakespeare In Love,” pull a controversial upset).
Disney must be hitting some heard times as they obviously let go of head of Walt Disney Studio Dick Cook recently (much to the chagrin of Cook-supporter Johnny Depp).
More news hits today and this time it’s at Universal that had a very bad summer this year with flailing bombs like “Land Of The Lost,” and not-quite performers like, “Bruno” and “Public Enemies.” So this news is essentially to be expected. Today it was announced that co-chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde are out and new co-chairmen Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley are in (Anne Thompson has the press release). Don’t expect a Michael Mann arthouse-blockbuster type next summer. Universal experimented and sadly failed because you guys would rather see “Transformers” and garbage like that. Good going guys. After this year, expect the slate to be as predictable and safe as Paramount’s “G.I. Joe” year was. It’s really just bad news for film lovers.
In news that is slightly heartening at least in the indie world, IFC’s New York theaters will be expanding from three theaters to five which is good for arthouse film lovers in New York. Now if only they could get one of these in every part of the country…(unfortunately there’s no market to sustain it). As Variety says, “Two additional arthouse screens may not appear to move the needle much, however, it’s a potential boon for indie films that fight to hold their screens as the majority are gobbled by studio mega-releases.”
At this point, we’ll take what we can get.
