Miramax shuts down with fate of film catalog uncertain

By Mark Pollard | Published February 2, 2010

Last week Disney finally closed the offices of indie film house Miramax Films after steady downsizing and decline in output following the departure of founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein back in 2005.

Among its many notable offerings, Miramax is still home to Quentin Tarantino’s films up through KILL BILL VOL. 1 and 2, and a host of Asian action classics including IRON MONKEY, DRUNKEN MASTER II (released as THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER) and HERO.

Roughly 70 to 80 employees in New York and Los Angeles will lose their jobs with a handful remaining to continue working at Disney’s headquarters in Burbank.

Despite the office closings and subsequent merger of its operations with its parent company, Disney has stated that the Miramax brand will continue to exist although the question remains of in whose hands?

Disney is hoping to sell off Miramax and its 700-film library to the highest bidder beginning at $700 million. Lionsgate has already said no thanks. One bidder expressing interest is Summitt Entertainment, the company behind the TWILIGHT films. Relativity Media, Studio Canal and entrepreneurial billionaire Nelson Peltz have also stepped up as potential bidders.

For his part, Harvey Weinstein released a statement expressing hope that he could one day reclaim Miramax without suggestion of any serious interest, at least at the present. It’s possible Harvey may someday get his wish if the price tag drops enough. There is question about the real value of Miramax’s library, which is rumored to be somewhere between $380 million and $500 million. It’s also hard to imagine anyone but Harvey turning the brand that he built around.

Miramax was founded in 1979 by Harvey and Bob Weinstein and named after their parents Miriam and Max. The company was bought out by Disney in 1993 but continued to operate independently, although tension between Harvey and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner gradually took its toll.

Under Harvey’s bullish leadership, the company enjoyed great success in the 1990s by producing and acquiring a string of hit films including CLERKS, PULP FICTION and THE ENGLISH PATIENT. Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith built their careers as Miramax and the company had a huge impact on the film industry by reinvigorating independent cinema, if only for a decade.

After New Line’s success with Jackie Chan’s RUMBLE IN THE BRONX in 1996 and with influence of Tarantino, Miramax began to acquire distribution rights to a large number of Hong Kong action film classics. Of the ones that were released, most were lambasted by highly vocal Hong Kong movie fans furious over the company’s tendency to release films cut, dubbed in English and marketed with confusing alternate titles and bad art. Much of the blame was laid at the feet of Harvey Weinstein who was notorious for getting personally involved in the editing, or re-editing process. As a result, the company earned the mock name of “MiramAxe” and became the target of an internet-based petition calling for greater respect of Asian cinema and its creators.

Yet for many fans, the biggest mistake made by Miramax was the decision to shelve many of their Asian film acquisitions for years, or indefinitely. It took them two years to release HERO while countless other films picked up during the Weinsteins’ tenure have yet to be released to this day.

Whoever buys Miramax will gain possession of whatever Disney didn’t sell off or Harvey didn’t drag with him to TWC. With 700 titles remaining, I’m betting there are a fair number of Asian action classics still in there, including ZATOICHI’S PILGRIMAGE. This is Shintaro Katsu’s 14th entry in his long-running chambara film series that Quentin Tarantino was rumored to have talked Harvey into buying rights to in order to film a remake that never materialized. As a result, it’s the only ZATOICHI film that has never been released in the U.S., except Junji Sakamoto’s upcoming ZATOICHI: THE LAST which is due out in 2010. It’s the little muck-ups like this that make the fanatical Asian action fan in me cry a little.

I’ve certainly had my share of frustrations with Miramax. They were the only film company to every bully this site with a ridiculous cease and desist order over our coverage of import DVDs. Yet there is no denying the company has left behind an impressive legacy in Hollywood that will hopefully find a new and improved home. It’s unlikely Miramax will ever reclaim its former indie glory but if we could just see their unreleased library rescued and released unmolested I’ll be content.

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  • poopoo
    Without the Weinsteins, Miramax is just an expensive backcatalogue. Disney should sell it back cheap.Unless Michael Eisner fancies sharing an audio commentary for Drunken Master 2 with Donald Duck?
  • Rhythm: Well, I think the reason Sony went for the edited R-rated version, anyway, was that they already spent money acquiring and promoting KFH, and they needed a return on the investment. Again, the fact that Shaolin Soccer got bootlegged a lot could have meant the same thing for KFH, if Sony wasted any more time on it. Just because many of the BT'ers were only pirating Shaolin Soccer to spite Harvey doesn't mean some of them couldn't have developed a habit of watching this stuff for free, rather than paying for it, in general. And the people who watch bootlegs and/or imports in general aren't necessarily the same as those who would go to a theater to watch these flicks in the first place.

    There are probably still a lot of American movie-goers who did not know who Stephen Chow was, period. Hell, when KFH was up for Best Foreign Film, and Chow showed up at the Egyptian in L.A., I did not see a huge turn-out for him. [Though in his defense, there were a lot of people who did go to the free CJ7 thing a while back.] And KFH was even more culturally-specific than Shaolin Soccer, which means that there was a risk that audiences wouldn't "get" the jokes as well as they would have with Shaolin Soccer. [Though it's ironic that it actually did better than Danny the Dog/Unleashed, which was probably more marketable to Western audiences.]

    As for the high-end titles, I'm not saying the low-end titles don't deserve better treatment, if they do the job just as well. But at least I don't feel like the low-end titles get as much shoddy treatment as they did under Harvey. The covers don't look as shitty as the Dimension stuff, and the titles don't feel like Steven Seagal came up with 'em. BTW, now that I think about it, considering their great work on Lust, Caution and Fearless, I think Focus would be a better home for Harvey's library than Sony and MGM. [Assuming Focus will be around that long, of course.] Maybe Magnolia, too, even though their rep defended the Besson Ong Bak edit.

    As for Musa, I heard Miramaxe had it, but was never able to confirm it.
  • fan
    that why people buy the import, they are never cut and they have the original dialog and subtitle in it, was they gonna bring Dragon Tiger Gate on dvd in a dub cut version,
  • I'm hoping the reason Di$ney put out DM 2, Hero, and Iron Monkey on BD is that the rights are about to expire soon, and maybe Sony will release 'em better. Plus, I'm hoping DD goes down soon, too, so we can get Fist of Legend uncut.
  • Rhythm-X
    Re: KUNG FU HUSTLE - Miramax did a good job (for them, anyway) selling (though not releasing) SHAOLIN SOCCER... good enough to make it one of the most widely downloaded movies ever according to a 2003 article at wired.com - http://tinyurl.com/y9pzcnp . The issue with HUSTLE isn't about selling it (Sony's campaign was as enthusiastic as it was incompetent), it's about submitting a cut version to the MPAA expecting to get a PG-13, getting an R instead, and then releasing the cut version with an R rather than resubmitting the uncut version, which would certainly not get anything stronger than an R.

    Re: the "high end" "deserves better?" Who gets to make that call? You? Me? Harvey Weinstein? To me, if it's worth releasing, it's worth releasing intact - the half-wits who don't want to watch the whole movie can just use their remote and skip to the parts where people are pounding the crap out of each other. To Harvey, they're all trash, no more worthy of respect than the crappiest DTV shitfest. I think HIGH RISK and HITMAN definitely deserved better. HITMAN was even filmed sync-sound, so that's the actual on-the-set performances that got tossed as opposed to some random voice actor in a vocal booth, not that that should be thrown out either, if, like DRUNKEN MASTER II, that's how it was originally released.

    Re: MUSA - did Miramax ever have this in the first place for it to be one of Harvey's leftovers?
  • In Sony's defense on Kung Fu Hustle, selling a Stephen Chow movie, after Harvey pretty much fucked over his prospects here with the edited Shaolin Soccer, was a tall order. In fact, I'm actually surprised it did as well as it did theatrically, considering it was a weak box office year in general. I'm not sure about why they edited Daggers, but Yimou seems to be ok with that sort of thing, and it was pretty slow and long even in that form. The only reason to see Gorgeous was the the final fight, as Tony Leung steals the show from Jackie, and I don't buy that a girl half his age would fall in love with his character. New Legend of Shaolin's the only Jet Li movie on that list I think deserves better, but I'm not entirely sure if it would have sold that much more, considering how hoakey it can be at times, compared to his other work. Haven't seen the extended Who Am I?, but I think it worked fine the way it was. The Musa thing might be a leftover from Harvey like the edited Promise. [Some insider I know claims that's the only version Warner Independent was allowed to buy off Harvey.] I will agree with the Drunken Master thing, though. That always came off lazy. But The Myth was garbage in any form and Jackie's worst effort since Fantasy Mission Force. So yeah, Sony's not perfect, but they do try to respect the high-end stuff when they can, at least.
  • Rhythm-X
    Sony's track record is better than Miramax - but that doesn't make it anything remotely like a good track record. Far from it. These are the people who put out a cut KUNG FU HUSTLE, a cut HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (these two are Sony productions - there's absolutely no valid excuse for either one of them being anything less than perfect), a cut GORGEOUS, retitled, cut, and dubbed-only versions of HITMAN, NEW LEGEND OF SHAOLIN, HIGH RISK, and BLACKSHEEP AFFAIR, a dubtitled GEN-X COPS, a cut WHO AM I?, a cut THE MYTH, a cut and retitled MUSA, the worst looking ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA 1-3 releases ever (admittedly that's at least partially Media Asia's fault - but I find it exceedingly tough to believe that super-gigantic multi-national corporation Sony couldn't get results at least equal to poor lil' HKL if they cared enough to do so) and on top of everything else, they couldn't even be bothered to fix the soundtrack to DRUNKEN MASTER (NTSC/VHS copies on the Magnum label with complete Cantonese tracks aren't that hard to find - especially back when that DVD was in the works and VHS was far more common). I've almost certainly overlooked any number of other Sony cockups.

    (If I could have any company wind up with the Miramax library, it'd be the perpetually-doomed MGM. Few companies would bother trying to fully restore something like the original YONGGARY, delaying the release for over a year to search for the Korean language audio track. Few companies would bother to restore something like TENTACLES to its director's cut complete with its original 4-track stereo sound. Those are the people I want handling DRAGONS FOREVER - not Sony. Of course, the noble folks from MGM will soon be on the unemployment lines next to the morons from Miramax.)
  • Rhythm-X
    There's definitely some Asian action classics in there - I know you remember the BCI/Eclipse deal that came agonizingly close to liberating 25 of 'em.

    Miramax Films is the company that poisoned the well for the distribution of Asian films in the United States. I won't miss them at all. I certainly won't mourn them, if anything this is a long overdue cause for celebration. I acknowledge they once played a useful role - but that stopped around the middle of the decade before last. If they'd ceased to exist in 1998 or so, we'd all be better off.

    But I'm saving the real bile for when we get to savor the obituaries for The Weinstein Company. I doubt we have long to wait.

    Rumor has it that Summit's looking to spend some of that TWILIGHT money. It's logical as they have no library to speak of - and I can't see them handling the Miramax library any worse than Miramax did. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out, if it's anything more than an idle rumor, that is.
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