Word: miramaxes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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More than any other modern movie mogul, Miramax's Harvey Weinstein has changed the film industry, taking small, independent films out of the art-house ghetto and into the mainstream. He has also been skewered in a new book for his fearsome temper and ego. He talked with Time's Jeffrey Ressner about that reputation, and a Miramax film that suffered an unexpected snub...
...MIRAMAX GOT 15 OSCAR NOMINATIONS, BUT COLD MOUNTAIN WAS IGNORED FOR BEST PICTURE. WHAT HAPPENED? I opened the movie at Christmastime so I could hopefully get Oscar nominations to fuel the box office. With the early [Oscar voting] this year, we fell short. There's a lot to do for Academy members, and I don't know how many members we got to. We just plain ran out of people who had seen this movie...
...BOOK DOWN AND DIRTY PICTURES ALLEGES THE INDEPENDENT-FILM MOVEMENT HAS BEEN CO-OPTED BY BIG CORPORATIONS, STARTING WITH DISNEY'S PURCHASE OF MIRAMAX. DO YOU AGREE? Yeah, my brother Bob and I sit in a little room with chemicals bubbling in test tubes figuring out how to hurt something we once loved. But seriously, the Academy Award nominations are almost an affirmation. I spent 54 weeks keeping City of God in movie theaters, and it got four nominations. How in God's name does anybody think we're not devoted to independent films...
...Affleck and Matt Damon didn't really get paid enough for Good Will Hunting. Their 1997 hit cost about $10 million and made well over $200 million worldwide, but their payout for writing and starring in the film came to little more than a million dollars combined. Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein later gave them each a $500,000 bonus check--a nice gesture, yet not quite what they felt they were owed. "You had to do some great accounting to hide net profits on that movie," grumbled Affleck. Nevertheless, they bided their time and learned to play Weinstein...
...history of movies in the '90s--or in any room--Weinstein looms large. Biskind portrays Miramax's Brobdingnagian bully as a movie-loving maniac prone to physical violence, verbal attacks and financial shenanigans. Those sins are usually forgiven because his little studio in Manhattan's Tribeca has backed many of the best, most original flicks in recent memory, including Pulp Fiction, The English Patient and Chicago, and he ponied up big time when MGM got cold feet about co-funding Cold Mountain...