Harvey and Bob Weinstein are getting the reunion they’ve long sought - and moviegoers could end up getting sequels to such older favorites as “Shakespeare in Love,” “Swingers” and “Rounders.”
The brothers’ film company, Weinstein Co., has struck a production and distribution deal that reconnects them to Miramax, the company they founded in 1979 and built up with such critically acclaimed movies as “sex, lies and videotape” and “Reservoir Dogs” before selling to Walt Disney Co. in 1993.
Under terms of the 20-year agreement, the companies will collaborate on new content as well as projects that mine Miramax’s library. The deal encompasses film, television and live stage productions.
“It’s wonderful to reunite the brothers Weinstein with the library,” said Jason E. Squire, a film business professor at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. “It’s really a full-circle sort of experience. That hasn’t happened too often in the history of the movie business.”
Harvey Weinstein told the Los Angeles Times that he is excited to have access to the “many jewels in the library,” adding that there is value not just in Miramax’s completed films but also in its many development projects.
“There are hundreds of scripts to decipher and remember, and find out why they were loved in the first place,” he said.
Weinstein said that he wants to make sequels to some of Miramax’s movies, including the 1998 Matt Damon poker drama, “Rounders.” The follow-up would center on a card game in which “one of the most beautiful French girls in the world is the stakes,” he said.
“I never have made a sequel ever; my brother has made all the sequels,” he said. “I’d like to have at least a ‘2’ in my epitaph.”
The brothers from Queens sold Miramax, which they had named after their parents, Miriam and Max, to Disney in 1993 for about $60 million. They remained involved with it until 2005, when they departed after a bitter dispute with Disney over creative control, and formed Weinstein Co.
In 2010, the Weinsteins tried to buy Miramax back from Disney but lost out to a $663-million bid from a group of investors led by Colony Capital, the private equity firm headed by Thomas J. Barrack Jr., and Qatar Holding, the investment vehicle of the Qatari royal family.
Miramax’s owners, who also include actor Rob Lowe, have not focused on making new films but instead have sought to exploit the company’s rich film library of about 750 movies, cutting digital distribution deals with outlets such as Netflix and Hulu.
Although Miramax has said this business has been lucrative, the company’s direction has been a disappointment for Hollywood’s creative community, which hoped Miramax, under new ownership, would be revived as the major moviemaking concern it had been.
Barrack said he had been “chasing Harvey for a long time,” adding that Miramax under Colony-Qatar ownership was inexperienced making movies, whereas Harvey Weinstein is “a nuclear physicist who could weave tapestries” with film projects.
What’s more, Barrack said that when the Weinsteins departed Miramax in 2005, they left behind about 250 development projects, “but it was like a Rubik’s Cube” trying to sort through and assess the material.
Denise Mann, a film professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, said that given the Weinsteins’ role in “launching a second indie renaissance” in the 1980s, it is “a little disconcerting” that Miramax’s owners largely appear motivated to work with the Weinstein brothers to exploit their previous commercial successes.
“Do we really need a ‘Swingers 2’ or ‘Shakespeare in Love 2’ from a duo known for taking risks with groundbreaking filmmakers in the past?” she asked.
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