Miramax
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“It’s Not Funny if It’s Not Bright”: Greg Mottola on Confess, Fletch
I read Confess, Fletch for the first time in high school and, ever since, it’s remained a personal favorite. That often surprises people when I tell them that, not least because the name “Fletch” is less associated with Gregory Mcdonald’s genuinely funny novels than Chevy Chase’s considerably goofier incarnation of the journalist-sleuth in 1985’s Fletch and 1988’s Fletch Lives. The original Fletch adaptation essentially retains the structure and basics of Mcdonald’s original but changes the tone to better suit Chase. For better and worse, Mcdonald’s books string together often hilarious dialogue exchanges with aspirationally Hemingway-esque connective prose; they work better when the emphasis is on […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 14, 2022 -
Industry Beat: Veteran Producers Rethink the Indie Model
by Anthony Kaufman on Oct 23, 2010 -
IFC TAKES “HARVEY WEINSTEIN PROJECT”
In a release today, IFC Films has announced they have acquired the worldwide rights (excluding Canada) to Barry Avrich‘s documentary, Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project. The release touts the film as a “powerful, uncensored, no-holds-barred account that traces Weinstein’s path from concert promoter on the cold streets of Buffalo to his first trip to the Cannes Film Festival, where he arrived with one pair of pants and closed his first movie deal, to winning an Oscar, and breaking the bank with his first $100 million film. It examines his complex relationships with his brother, his staff, and the Hollywood community […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 16, 2010 -
ISRAEL GOES TO PARAMOUNT
As Indiewire and Anne Thompson have reported, veteran exec Amy Israel, who worked acquisitions for Miramax and then production for the L.A. post house The Orphanage, has been named Executive Vice President of Production and Acquisitions at Paramount Classics by its new head, John Lesher. In a statement, Lesher said, “”Amy’s extensive background and stellar reputation makes her an ideal choice to help us create a wholly new, dynamic production and acquisition-driven film business. Her expertise as a producer, and her involvement in some of the most successful independent films of the last decade speak volumes about her leadership and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 5, 2006 -
“…LIKE THE NEW COKE”
Variety has an amusing (subscription only) piece by Nicole Laporte today about a bi-coastal party this past Thursday attended by 200 Miramax current and ex-staffers (pre-maturely dubbed “Mir-Anon’s” by the trade paper). Held at Barney’s Beanery in L.A. and a rooftop in downtown Manhattan, the evening marked for the distributor’s staff the end of the Weinstein era. From the piece: “Rick Sands, a Miramax alum who’s now chief operating officer at DreamWorks, planned to be there. Asked if the Weinsteins knew about the soiree, Sands said, ‘Absolutely not! They’ll be the subject of conversation. They won’t want to be there.’ […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 25, 2005 -
BOCCO LANDS AT GERSH
We were happy to read via Variety that former Miramax acquisitions exec Arianna Bocco, who recently left the company, has landed at Gershs’ New York office where she will head “an independent feature film packaging unit” with a special emphasis on bringing international filmmakers into the Gersh fold. An admirably straight shooter in the tangled world of acquisitions, Bocco was a tenacious exec for both Miramax and her previous employer, New Line, and worked on such films as City of God.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2005 -
THE BEST-FINANCED INDEPENDENT FILM COMPANY IN NEW YORK
Well done piece by Eddie Borges in the New York Observer about Blueprint, the new New York-based collaboration between Initial Entertainment’s Graham King and former Miramax exec Rick Schwartz, famous for his supporting role in Project Greenlight. Writes Borges, “And so, earlier this year, Blueprint opened its sparsely furnished offices in a second-story loft overlooking Mercer Street in Soho, marking the arrival of a new big fish in the small pond of Manhattan’s film world. For, despite the apparent frugality of its offices, as a subsidiary of Mr. King’s Santa Monica-based film sales company, Initial Entertainment Group, which just secured […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 13, 2005 -
TALK — NO LONGER CHEAP
Producer Ted Hope e-mailed me this New York Times article by Anne Thompson which is mandatory reading for all producers, writers and development executives. The article concerns the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and its recent ruling in the Jeff Grosso v. Miramax Film Corporation case. In the case, Grosso, a freelance writer and high-stakes poker player, sued Miramax claiming that the John Dahl film Rounders lifted story details and characters from his own spec script The Shell Game, which he had submitted unsolicited to a production company that had offices in the Miramax building. As quoted in the Times, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 13, 2004 -
RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT
There’s a great lead article in Variety this week by Dana Harris and Claude Brodesser — sorry, subscription only — titled “Films Buried Alive.” And although the headline might lead you to think that the piece is about the many long-delayed films on the Miramax release shelf, it’s actually a perceptive article about the politics involved in greenlighting a studio film. It confirms in print something producers have long known: despite the importance placed by studio execs on the development process, the scripts that actually get greenlit by the studios are often the least developed ones. And if there’s one […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 20, 2004
