Harvey Weinstein allegations; who's next when it comes to allegations? (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

Deadline is now reporting that Warner Bros. and Sony are bidding for Paddington 2: http://deadline.com/2017/11/padding...orth-american-distribution-rights-1202208119/.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Warner Bros. announced today that they have acquired the domestic distribution rights to Paddington 2 from TWC and will be keeping its original release ate of January 12, 2018, which was first scheduled by TWC.

Also, TWC and Mirimax are being sued in a class action for racketeering: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/weinstein-company-hit-racketeering-class-action-1058524

 

[Jake Lipson]

Surprise: there's a new bidder in town for TWC, and she wants to restructure it to be largely female-run.

http://deadline.com/2017/11/weinstein-co-sale-maria-contreras-sweet-1202212028/

I am not familiar with the name Maria Contreas-Sweet and don't know if she has any entertainment industry experience yet or not.

But this is interesting.

 

[jcroy]

Besides the back catalog, what else would be considerable valuable from the carcass of TWC ?

 

[Jake Lipson]

Besides the back catalog, what else would be considerable valuable from the carcass of TWC ?

Good question.

This is what I know of.

TWC still has a number of completed films that are awaiting release. They sold Paddington 2 to Warner Bros., but they still have The Upside (the English remake of The Intouchables) with Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart, which is completed and was expected to be released March 9; The Current War with Benedict Cumberbatch; Mary Magdalene with Rooney Mara and directed by Garth Davis, who made Lion; Polaroid, a horror film which was to be released on Wednesday before the scandal broke; and Hotel Mumbai with Dev Patel.

They also (currently) have the rights to certain projects that were in development, including In the Heights (the 2008 Tony-winning Best Musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is now best known as the creator of Hamilton.) He and his co-author, Quiera Hughes, have asked TWC to relinquish their rights to the show and have made clear that they will no longer work on any adaptation involving TWC. But there has been no official announcement of the TWC board agreeing to give up those rights. So, it would appear that TWC still technically could proceed with such a film (although speaking as a fan of that show, I wouldn't pay to see it unless Lin and Quierra were involved and approved of it.)

A few years ago, they were developing the Stephen Schwartz musical Pippin with Craig Zedan and Neil Meron attached to produce (those guys produced Chicago for Mirimax when Harvey and Bob were over there), but I don't know how far along that got and whether they still have those rights. James Ponsoldt (director of The Spectacular Now and The End of the Tour) was attached to write this at one time. I don't know if he still is or how far along he might be if he is.

They were also in pre-production on a remake of The Six Million Dollar Man, but again, I'm not sure what the status of that was. Mark Whalberg was supposed to star for director Damián Szifrón (director of Wild Tales, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film a few years ago.)

 

[TravisR]

Who owns the Miramax/Dimension catalog? I think Lion's Gate has been releasing it on Blu-ray, etc. but do they outright own it?

 

[jcroy]

Wonder if the sale of Paddington to Warner is related to a $45 million loan being called in.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/weinstein-company-hit-lawsuit-45-million-loan-1057478

 

[jcroy]

Who owns the Miramax/Dimension catalog? I think Lion's Gate has been releasing it on Blu-ray, etc. but do they outright own it?

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/...is-bought-by-the-qatari-bein-media-group.html

 

[jcroy]

I would be quite surprised if Lionsgate would do another huge acquisition so soon. They gobbled up Starz almost a year ago.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I think the sale of Paddington is for a few reasons. They obviously need the money, but also, TWC didn't produce it, they only had domestic distribution rights. David Heyman, the producer, has been particularly adamant about prying the movie free from TWC after the scandal. And, as a family film, there may be a sense that it would be particularly damaged if it had actually gone out under TWC's name.

Haymen has worked with WB a lot (he was/is the lead producer on all the Harry Potter and related Fantastic Beasts films, as well as Gravity), so they were a logical place to take it. Although the Haymen connection did not help WB land Tarintino's next film, which he is producing, which went to Sony.

 

[jcroy]

My suspicion is if they're not filing or forced into bankruptcy, it is to prevent any further scrutiny and bad information from leaking out.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Harvey fought very hard to buy back the Mirimax name and library a couple of times, but was unsuccessful. I know he and Bob wanted it because they named it after their parents (Miriam and Max.) I suppose, after their dispute with Disney and exit from Mirimax, Harvey thought that putting his own name in the title of the new company would mean that it could never run without him.

Ironic, no?

 

[jcroy]

Harvey thought that putting his own name in the title of the new company would mean that it could never run without him.

He would have been naive to have believed something like this ^

There's examples where something ran fine without the original namesake being involved.

 

[jcroy]

As to whether TWC is saleable at all, will probably be highly dependent on how huge are their liabilities (ie. debts, legal settlements, liens, etc ....). If such liabilities are too deep and extensive, then potential buyers might very well just wait until TWC is forced into bankruptcy by one of their creditors (possibly secured).

 

[Jake Lipson]

My opinion is that even if TWC were to be saved, it would be very difficult to sustain operations. Who in Hollywood's creative community is going to want to be seen setting up a new project there? Even if they changed their name, the stink of Weinstein will remain. While of course I'm not rooting for anybody to loe their jobs, I wonder if it might be more merciful to just fold, rather than limping along on their last legs and stringing employees along too.

 

[jcroy]

At this point, I suspect TWC is beyond being saved.

With Harvey gone, most likely the remaining high level executives are doing whatever they can to prevent any further incriminating information from being leaked. Especially if such incriminating information points directly to them being complicit.

The question is whether a sale of the back catalog and already/almost finished films will raise enough cash to pay off creditors without filing (or being forced) for bankruptcy.

 

[jcroy]

ie. It takes a lot of cash to get people to "shut up" and not say anything.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I hope that one of the side effects of Harvey's downfall is that the culture of silence and payoffs is coming to an end. Maybe that's naive, but that's my idealized hope.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Another question -- and this might be tied to the sale of the back catalog. I don't really expect anybody to have the definitive answer to this, but it's worth asking.

Our local art house is the only place around here that is capable of screening film on film. They have 35mm and 70mm capability.

During the release of The Hateful Eight, the local Cinemark (which is about 5 minutes from the arthouse in the other direction) threw a fit about exclusivity and blah blah blah, so the arthouse was not allowed to book Hateful Eight in 70mm until after Cinemark had closed it. But they eventually did book H8 for a couple 70mm showings.

I was not here yet -- I moved in late 2016 -- and in Indiana where I used to live, the big downtown IMAX inside the state museum is the only place that could do 70mm. In December 2015, they had a 70mm IMAX print of The Force Awakens and played it for three months until it was replaced with Batman v. Superman. So the 70mm version of Hateful Eight did not play Indiana at all and I saw it in digital.

When possible our arthouse occasionally brings in 70mm films that aren't in general release and just shows them as an event because they can. When I moved here, I asked about Hateful Eight and was told the story about Cinemark objecting to the arthouse having it, and that they showed it a couple times after Cinemark was done with it, and that they would eventually try to bring back the 70mm print as part of their overall 70mm series. It's not on the schedule yet but, as I am staying here permanently now with no plans to move, I would like to think that if I am patient enough, eventually such a screening will happen and then I'll be able to see it.

So: if TWC folds, what happens to the 70mm prints of Hateful Eight, and who would control their bookings?

Although I care about it less, the same question applies to The Master, also a TWC 70mm release. (We had that here earlier this year several months before the scandal broke, but someone at TWC screwed up and forgot to include one of the reels, then overnight shipped it to the wrong city -- don't ask me how, I don't know -- so that resulted in them screening it almost all in 70mm, but switching to digital in the middle for the duration of the missing reel.) How you forget to send an entire reel of film in the middle of the movie I don't understand, but yeah, that happened.

 

[jcroy]

I hope that one of the side effects of Harvey's downfall is that the culture of silence and payoffs is coming to an end. Maybe that's naive, but that's my idealized hope.

Without getting heavily into politics, one big way to get this ^ to happen is to cut off the cash valve for such hush money payoffs.

For example, such as not being allowed to write off hush money as a business expense. (There's been several proposals this past week about this, which I won't bother with any links. They'll show up on google).