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Just this week, a very reliable source confided that The Weinstein Co may need to hold a fire sale or it could go out of business by August. Trouble is, we all have been hearing rumors that TWC may go under, and yet it stays afloat. But today the Wall Street Journal's Lauren Schuker reports that The Weinstein Co has hired financial adviser Miller Buckfire & Co to "explore possible restructuring or refinancing". One of my sources confirms and notes, "You don't hire Miller Buckfire to raise money. You hire Miller Buckfire because they are one of top restructuring experts in the country. They currently represent several top institutions going through bankruptcy." In a statement, a TWC spokeswoman said: "As a matter of practice, we have always worked with financial institutions to explore our options with respect to equity and possible investments and something we will continue to do. This was an ordinary course we took at Miramax, The Weinstein Company and every business venture we have had in our 30 year career." Other sources insist TWC has the money to market Inglorious Basterds, but it received very mixed reviews after its debut at the Cannes Film Festival. Last I heard, Harvey has successfully pressured Quentin Tarantino to edit down the nearly 3-hour pic.
The Weinstein Company To Restructure
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Hedgefund crashes are the culprit
try and find a financier, investor anywhere to finance my 20MM pic that I have with A list stars attached and I will give you a million cash, and don’t bring me ones that I already know are full of SH__, or they need to get my 10MM to get their 10MM, use tax breaks with my 10 MM ect I know them all, I need new, fresh virgin investors, the studios want my pict they never play nice. And yes I have already had excellent coverage, the script is written by a writer with a few blockbusters on his resume, and I already spent 2MM putting this package together so it is air tight, but……. if TWC is in trouble that is a very bad sign for me, maybe I should go on vacation for 5 years ?
What are they going to restructure? All the shit fell off their shingle years ago. Is there anything left?
Far as I’m concerned — let the “basterds” burn. They should re-open their deli and sell “Gwynnie” sandwiches.
Bye Sweinstein Co. From the Oscars® to Lifetime Television, the fatboys have surely come a long way!!
Say goodnight to the “Incapable Basterds”.
Memo to Harvey Weinstein
Harvey baby there’s a simple solution to your problem. You have to make a sequel to Shakespeare in Love and you have to make it fast right away. You can’t wait for a decent script or the ideal cast so you need to hire Rodriguez and Tarantino to grind it out fast and cheap. Make it look like the sequel to Grindhouse. You could even call it Shakespeare in Love at the Grindhouse. This will bring in the audience in droves and you’ll be back in the black in no time at all. You might even want to tell Quentin to throw in a fake trailer for “Kill Bill Shakespeare” with David Carradine as the Ghost of Hamlet or Omelette or something sophisticated to impress the highbrow critics who still hate you because you’re such a fat obnoxious prick.
Your pal,
Samuel J. Glick
Really looking forward to seeing Quentin’s 3 hour cut – I hope it’s not chopped bc of Harvey’s righteous demands. Loved the script – Quentin: if you R reading this…RELEASE THE FULL VERSION!!! Talent = King!
Harvey’s curtain call from this business will be welcomed by practically everyone in the business. Having spoken many times to the filmmakers who are continually burned by this man leaves me feeling zero sympathy for him and his brother. People are always saying, but look at the great films he’s produced under his banner. And I say, that’s when he had some creative balls and wasn’t trying to play mini-studio. He’s become a play-it-safe, puritanical slave to test audiences and will do anything to best the filmmakers when he sees it differently (which is usually the wrong way to go). Not only does he wage war with them in the editing room, but he then proceeds to dump their films anyway – usually after keeping them on the shelf for so long the subject matters are out of date or no one remembers the film was even made. I know someone who just went through the ringer on a Harvey movie (with major stars) and the guy is emotionally scarred from having his most personal and important film ass-raped by Harvey’s hack style backroom editing. He almost quit the business, but decided he wasn’t going to let Harvey win. If I have to bet on who will be around longer, I’m going to be on my friend. He’s way more talented. And younger. If Harvey really wants to prove himself, he should go off and direct that holocaust film he’s always threatening to direct. Then let’s see how he feels on the other side of the shotgun barrel when someone of note is telling him to cut his favorite scene, moment or line. Honestly, the film industry is better off without this guy. He’s cruised along on Quentin’s rep and good nature for far too long.
Lionsgate, MGM and Weinstein Co. should all just merge
already. Enough with all of the mumbo jumbo and guessing games. With Lionsgate and MGM merged together
you will have two Lions that roar! And with Harvey’s Weinstein Company merged in as a third entity the Lionsgate/MGM partership would get a third lion- Harvey. (And you should hear Harvey’s roar ~!)
The great French playwright Marcel Pagnol once wrote that he had met a lot of bankrupt producers, but never one who was poor.
The Weinstein brothers are loaded and if our legal system was fair, their numerous unpaid creditors should seize every penny they have and send the two to the poorhouse.
Unfortunately for the W’s their business model is broken, the financing they need simply isn’t available, nor will it be for many years to come.
‘Inglorious Basterds’ will sink them and their appointment of restructurers (a..a. bankruptcy advisers) shows they know it.
Fortunately for the rest of us it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Schadenfreude all round.
Gee, Harvey’s strategy of buying up movies and then sitting on them for years until all hope of profitability is lost has hurt the company?
I am shocked and appalled at this development.
HAHA! Thank god those two greasy fat phuck brothers are going to go bankrupt! LET THEM BURN! They are aholes who make crappy movies.
Oh they’re so done. I don’t think Basterds can save them, even if it’s a hit. The dam’s already been busted. They’re failing because instead of establishing a brand of risk taking projects they wanted to be like everyone else. Yeah they took some risks with Grindhouse and such, but it was a boneheaded move to think that audiences would sit for a three hour movie mocking Z-grade films of the past.
There was a niche to be carved for bold storytelling and they blew it. There is no doubt back in the halcyon days of Miramax that Harvey would’ve scooped up Slumdog and ride that horse to Oscar gold. It’s all about risk. Fortune favors the bold.
It makes sense in the grand scheme of things that the person Team Slob claimed made their company, Tarantino, is gonna help end the company and get dragged right down with them. He was really a third Miramax brother in that he was cheap, egomaniacal, volatile, and a ruthless lying backstabber, so he fit right in with their, ah, culture.
Failure truly is a cultural event in Hollywood, and with Jon Peters, Jim Wiatt, the Weinsteins and Tarantino all going down in flames one right after another, I’m going deaf from all the champagne corks popping all over town.
It’s no coincidence that Miramax grew and flourished during the 80s and 90s – two of the most prosperous decades in US history.
Having to start over now – Bad Timing, boys…
furiousG, if Lionsgate, MGM and Weinstein Company merge, you’ll just end up with two lions and a hog. Everyone needs to stand well back because when harvey falls, he’ll make quite a crater. Should have gone easy on the cheesy poofs.
Furious G (if that is your real name.)
While MGM could merge with Lionsgate, it’s billions in debt, and needs a major league sugar daddy to get it out. Lionsgate isn’t that sugar daddy, and while the income from MGM’s library would be nice, I’m not sure they’d view it as worth acquiring all that debt.
As for the Weinstein Co. any “merger” with that sinking ship would be just the purchase of any assets that still have any value at fire sale prices, and the royal booting of the Brothers W. onto the street.
Lionsgate is not on the verge of collapse like TWC or crippled by debt like MGM, it just needs some reformation in it business model and management. It tried to become a major studio overnight, when it had a nice niche catering to the gaps in the market that the big boys left behind.
And as for your name… while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, there is only one true original, sexy, stylish, witty, and furious member of the alphabet.
:p
Has the Weinstien Company generated a huge number of flops which spurred its debt?
Serves the cheap inglourious b******s right! Wait a minute… does this mean I’ll never get paid those residuals they owe me?
Maybe “Harvey and Corky” could go back into the concert business?
Bwah-ha-ha-ha!
Say what you will, but the industry needs TWC to stay in business. One less buyer/financier would be bad for everyone. also, i truely believe the harvey and bob have become much more filmmaker/talent friendly over the years. i’ve had several clients work there over the past couple of years, and they’ve been nothing but supportive during the process of making the films.
Swifty Lazar,
That is utter and absolute BULLSHIT! You must work for one of the Weinsteins, because the truth is, Harvey and Bob have become even WORSE than their Miramax days. They have fucked over so many filmmakers recently, it’s an absolute joke to read your company line drivel. Um, let’s see: they forced Stephen Daldry to rush THE READER through post (while beating up the Academy voters into nominating the film several times; most critics thought the film wasn’t ready) and it only made something like 30 mill at the box office, despite being in the awards game. They butchered the immigration drama CROSSING OVER and cut out a pivotal Sean Penn performance while completely alienating the director Wayne Kramer who would rather clean toilets for a living than work with them again. And, of course, after all that sturm and drang, they dumped the movie anyway. So a Harrison Ford film, thrown out there with no marketing and poor reviews (despite warnings from the filmmaker that their cut didn’t work) makes less than five hundred grand domestic box office. They cut and recut and reshot the Mickey Rourke/Diane Lane Elmore Leonard thriller KILLSHOT – then guess what? They dump it anyway. This, after they piss Quentin Tarantino off with the butchering of Leonard’s novel that he takes his name off the film. I wonder if Academy Award nominated director John Madden will ever work with them again. Me thinks not. They dumped another really good sci-fi film they bought called OUTLANDER with Jim Caviezel. They could have done decent business with this one, but they had no faith in it. Stupid. They financed and then dumped Greg McClean’s follow up to WOLF CREEK, the giant crocodile film called ROGUE. It was a quality creature feature that could have done well in theaters. Nope, pretty much straight to DVD. They got the Forrest Whitaker drama HURRICANE SEASON sitting on the shelf. They’ve been chopping away at THE ROAD and put out a pathetic trailer which includes fan-hated footage that supposedly isn’t even in the film. So that’s John Hilcoat, another up and coming filmmaker that probably won’t be returning to their fold anytime soon. Scorsese, Danny Boyle, Guillermo Del Toro, Julie Taymor, M. Night Shyamalan… the list goes on and on. None of these filmmakers would work with the Weinsteins again if they owned the last roll of celluloid. Harvey listens to no one but movie stars – inviting them into the cutting room to destroy filmmakers’ work. Ask Guy Pierce about the Harvey instigated shenanigans on FACTORY GIRL? Pierce was even invited to direct the reshoots. Ask Kyle Newman about his experience with Harvey on FANBOYS (which they also dumped). Newman goes on his honeymoon and Harvey hires another director to shoot a bunch of new scenes for the film – without even asking Newman if he wishes to be involved. Filmmaker/talent friendly? MUUUAAHHHAAHHAAAA!!!!!! And I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. The business does NOT need the Weinstein’s to succeed. The business needs them to go quietly into the night.
i’ve had several clients work there over the past couple of years, and they’ve been nothing but supportive during the process of making the films.
Being supportive during the making of a film, and actually releasing the film are two totally different things.
Right now TWC is known more for the films they bury, than the ones they put in theaters. And god forbid you have a film with any buzz at Sundance or another festival and you sell it to TWC, because by the time it plays on two screens in Arizona, it’ll be long forgotten and go straight to the discount bin.
I knew the constant thread of slams couldn’t continue without a Sweinstein shill posting crap about the “industry NEEDS TWC”? What? Does Harvey pay you in crack? They make the real movie industry look like angels — Sweinsteins are the true demons. Thieves of dreams. I love the comment by the swift shill “i’ve had several clients work there over the past couple of years, and they’ve been nothing but supportive during the process of making the films”. What clients — what films? All your clients made the tiny slate of pictures TWC had in production?? Get real idiot. They’re DEAD.
Classic Harvey lore:
1. At Miramax (the original company), you don’t get paid for what you do, you get paid for what they do to you.
2. Harvey didn’t like the story told in Tornatore’s MALENA, which is in an obscure dialect of Italian. He had Anthony Minghella rewrite the story through the subtitles.
3. Harvey overtook Michael Moore’s FAHRENHEIT 9/11, tore up all European distributor contracts weeks before scheduled theatrical releases, forced companies to significantly increase their MGs, and then added “access fees” to materials deliveries.
Anyone heard John Lennon’s song INSTANT KARMA?
Wow, if the Weinsteins have done all this then it probably is better they go out of business.
I don’t believe the film business depends on any one person or any one company. When one crashes and burns, another will arise from their ashes. The film business will go on.
What comes around, goes around in the case of the Weinsteins.
What does this mean for the Heidi Klum series “project Runway” that Harvey botched up?
They deserve to be out of business. A few months ago the W’s hired a top exec to run their company. They closed the deal and then when the exec resigned they backed out of the deal leaving the exec out of a job. Karma’s a bitch!
Gregg, glad you called Swifty Lazar out for the bullshit he/she is shoveling on here. Normally, I would be for the indy studio making it, but not when it’s run by these guys. They really are horrible, and I can attest to this personally as well. Anyone pulling for them is either tied up with them right now and is praying they sucker in a new investor, and I can’t say I blame them (my heart really goes out to these filmmakers) or they are shilling for them. The Weinsteins deserve every bit of vitriol they receive on this board!
Just wanted to say that despite all the troubles and negative press, TWC has always treated me with kindness and respect. They’ve afforded me and my work a certain level of dignity that I never could have expected. One executive in particular has been particularly kind and passionate about our project. A great guy, and I wish him the best as they look to find their footing.
All this just means that Summit will have to step up to the plate soon.
Hey, Overture, Chris McGurk, where are ya’?