missingharvmilk2.jpgEarlier tonight I received a call from The Weinstein Co’s David Glasser claiming that the cash-strapped indie film company will emerge from its restructuring next week “debt-free”. Do I believe this? About as much as I believe any of the phony baloney spin coming out of the Weinstein PR machine these days. (That Miramax was theirs, for instance?) For six months Deadline has been hearing from TWC how the company was looking to relieve itself of the burden of servicing its mountainous debt which led to massive layoffs, revolving door executives, and a movie release schedule in shambles. (That’s when we wrote: Weinstein Co Gets “New Lease On Life”? at the start of the Sundance Film Festival.)

weinsteinlogoTonight, journalists like myself are being told that TWC’s $400M worth of liquidity woes ($500M six months ago) has miraculously disappeared. “We’re absolved of all our debt,” Glasser claimed to me. Suffice it to say that Ambac Financial Group still won’t pull the plug on TWC, and Goldman Sachs now is holding a lien against 200 films, the vast majority of them home video crap left over from TWC’s Genius fiasco, and I could go on and on with details. But I’m sick of this company’s claims. (Harvey doesn’t even get on the phone to reporters anymore because he’s fearful of saying anything contrary to what he’s claimed to creditors.)

People do business with The Weinstein Co at their peril. I know from my reporting that almost everybody who trusts The Weinstein Co lives to regret it, especially the moviemakers who believe Harv’s big promises and then wonder why their pics are dumped straight to video or never released theatrically or worse. Then they come running to Deadline to complain. So now I’m told The Weinstein Co can make, market, and distribute movies like the good old days that never existed at TWC? No one wants to see a buyer exit what is already a dwindling marketplace for creative output. But I won’t be suckered by TWC yet again.

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.