• What may be Miramax's last great premiere took place last night at the AFI Festival, celebrating the debut of Everybody's Fine, the news dramedy starring Robert De Niro, and the company appears to be going out with something less than a roar. There were early hopes that the film might give Miramax — and De Niro — one last Oscar hurrah. HItfix reports however, that "the film a mess in so many ways that neither the legendary actor or the stars who play his children — Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore and Kate Beckinsale — can save it." [Hitfix]

• The natives are getting restless and the drumbeat grows ever louder for the NBC/Universal Comcast deal. In their quarterly earnings reports, Comcast reported their profits were up 22 percent, bringing to a crescendo pleas that they just go ahead and buy NBC already and end our long showbiz-wide nightmare of suspense. [Variety]

• At the other end of the spectrum, Time-Warner was the beneficiary of low expectations. Its profits fell 38 percent last quarter, which remarkably was above expectations and led the company to raise its earnings projections for the year. [Hollywood Reporter]

• There may be signs of life in that old DVD market yet. The Wrap reports that after the huge success of the Transformers 2 DVD release, analysts are optimistic about the upcoming crop of blockbuster home releases to fuel strong sales. [The Wrap]

• The American Film Market, where US independent filmmakers peddle their wares for international distributors, opened yesterday and Variety saw hopes that the expo may be coming out of the doldrums it has been in in recent years. In addition to a line-up of films made by and featuring some heavy-hitters, Variety says the worldwide success of a handful of indie films — including Slumdog Millionaire — has created a more favorable climate. [Variety]

• Gerard Butler will star in the directorial debut of actor Ralph Fiennes, a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. [Hollywood Reporter]

Since losing their brand, life hasn't been right for the Brothers Weinstein. Could a name change though really bring back that magical English Patient era?

• Their company may be ailing, but Weinsteins are ready to make a play to get their name back. The Wrap reports that Harvey and Bob are preparing a pitch to Robert Iger to buy back their old Miramax brand now that Disney has all but shuttered the division. When they left Disney, The Wrap reports, Michael Eisner refused out of spite to let them take the name — which is a hybrid of the Weinsteins' parent's names - with them. But with Disney now under less vengeance driven management the Weinsteins hope is that the time be be ripe for an historic reunion . [The Wrap]

• George Clooney is reportedly "circling the lead" role in the long awaited new film by Sideways and Election director Alexander Payne, a family drama/comedy entitled The Descendents. [Variety]

• Suggesting that Oscar's new producers may be taking a step away from from the Hugh Jackman mold, Nikki Finke reports that the hosting job has been offered to and turned down by both Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. Which means there is only one Tropic Thunder star left to host...Jack Black, your day of destiny has arrived. [Deadline]

• Hollywood is saved! In earnings season, Viacom reported "better-than-expected third-quarter profit gains thanks to improved theatrical film and TV advertising trends, as well as cost controls." Marvel however, ruined the party by reporting lower profits in Q3, as they had no theatrical releases last quarter. Thanks for nothing Marvel. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Sony Classics has picked up the US rights to Mother and Child a drama about three women and their children, which received gushing reviews when it debuted at the Toronto Film Festival in September. [Variety]

• Diversity is at last coming to late night TV. Fifteen years after Arsenio Hall went off the air, the next few weeks will see the debuts of talk shows built around George Lopez (TBS), Wanda Sykes (Fox) and Mo'Nique (BET). [The Wrap]

• The Atrios are in! The casting society of America handed out their annual awards at a banquet last night, giving top honors to Star Trek, Mad Men, Up and Milk. Kath and Kim's John Michael Higgins hosted the fete. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Most brilliantly understated headline of the morning: "Paranormal Activity sequel a possibility. Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman reveals Tuesday." Yes, well there is always that chance that Viacom has decided they've made enough money this decade. [Hollywood Reporter]

• The unsinkable Jim Belushi juggernaut rolls on. The According to Jim vet has signed up with Diane English and Barry Levinson to create a courtroom TV drama based on famed defense attorney Mickey Sherman. [Variety]

The state of things was made clear today with the announcement that Miramax President Daniel Battsek would be stepping down. His decision came after news in recent weeks that Miramax headquarters would be moved from NYC to LA and that the company would scale back its annual release slate to three pictures, which is to say the functional equivalent of no pictures.

The shake-up ends the recent decades of dabbling all over the map for Disney and now leaves the independent film world decimated down to its core, with Fox Searchlight, Focus and Sony Classics the only major specialty units still moving at full steam following the departures or diminishments of New Line and , Paramount Vantage.

NOTE: A previous version of this mistakenly item listed Focus Features in the diminished list. We are delighted to learn that Focus is alive and well.

It wasn't much of a surprise when it was announced that Disney would be "restructuring" Miramax down to three films a year and cutting their staff by 70%.

When Disney studio chief Dick Cook was ousted last week, it was pretty common knowledge that an absent Cook, who was long a proponent of keeping the Miramax brand alive, certainly wasn't going to help things. Miramax hasn't been sufficiently profitable for a while, at least by Disney's standards. Sure, they've turned out some quality films over the last few years (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood) but most people attribute those victories to New York's Worst Boss '07, producer Scott Rudin, and not Miramax head Daniel Battsek, the Brit who couldn't zero in on American tastes without the help of producers like Rudin: ears for quality and easy ins to studios. Miramax has also had far more than their fair share of failures lately, which the LAT report nicely reduces to their most recent three (Extract, Cheri, and The Boys Are Back). Are we forgetting Adventureland, Eagle vs. Shark, Blindness, etc? Because, well, we shouldn't.

These are mostly expensive films with fairly "bankable" stars being trotted out as "independent" fare, or as the LA Times enjoys calling it: "smaller, offbeat movies," which is a nice euphemism for anything that doesn't have a nailed-down demographic of conspicuous consumers (or, for that matter, teenagers). But big studio dramas used to do really well! Remember the 90s? Braveheart, Schindler's List, American Beauty, Gladiator: these films used to win box offices and Oscars. Not anymore. In their place are smaller affairs: The Reader, Crash, Revolutionary Road. Restrained pieces of moviemaking that aren't as epic as their history would suggest. Times change.

Picturehouse, Warner Independent, and now, Miramax: all of these were so-called "specialty division" studio-within-studios that failed. They were built up to lure stars with the promise of getting their art-house rocks off in exchange for a multi-picture deal involving a blockbuster. Why? Because, for studios, they weren't worth the cost of the money they were losing devoting resources to making or acquiring and marketing these mostly unprofitable movies. So: studio indies are coming to an end. Thank god.

Miramax got their name by making movies like Swingers and Pulp Fiction. They stumbled upon raw talent who could make an incredible movie on the cheap, and the profits were extraordinary. When you have the backing of a studio like Disney, or Warner Bros, that's never going to happen. As much as they probably enjoy the schadenfreude of Disney fucking up their baby, even The Weinstein Brothers, still hopped up on the memories of their last moneyed days with Disney, are now caught between pissing cash into the wind on highbrow stuff, or focusing on making more stuff like Halloween 2. Layoffs are impending for Miramax employees who once thought they had the safety of a studio that cared about "good" movies. Disney's commitment to "quality" extends as far as their bottom line, like so many other multinationals trying to turn a buck.

Independent film used to be a game of digging through the dark to find something incredible, and that might be what it's returning to. Hollywood's new producers are savvy to New Media marketing games; they know how to make good films while keeping the kitchen sink. We can try to avoid the symbolism of Miramax's doom as much as we want to, but in the end, it's simple: conglomerates are out of the art-house game, which means its full-on open season for underdog movies again. Let the new Weinsteins emerge.

Patrick Goldstein notes today that the studio has retracted its innovative if controversial "hybrid blurb" from print-ad circulation effective immediately, meaning New York Post critic Lou Lumenick will at last have his own personal, decontextualized praise attributed to him alongside his peers. The bad news: Lumenick's Post colleague and former blurbmate Cindy Adams lost her berth to that monolith of critical integrity Roger Friedman. Hopefully they corrected his spelling.

• Miramax pulls fudged blurb from 'Doubt' ad [The Big Picture]

NY Post critic Lou Lumenick complained Thursday that Miramax had blended a portion of his Doubt review with that of his colleague Cindy Adams, resulting in yesterday's ad blurb in the NY Times: "This is what movies used to be and should be. Doubt is heart-stopping. A feast of great acting.'' Naturally Lumenick was a little disappointed with this unprecedented awards-season license, but we love the audacity and hope to see more — and more creative — instances of its usage in the months and years to come.

In that spirit, we've formulated a few of our own multi-party blurbs for some of last year's reviews and commentaries on Defamer. Feel free to borrow at will, Hollywood, or just compose your own with the handy links provided:

· The Dark Knight: "So ambitious and epic and so expensive-looking. The Departed with bat-gadgets. I want overturned big rigs!"

· Revolutionary Road: "Screenwriter Justin Haythe digests Richard Yates's piercing dialogue into compact, Oscar-clip-compatible bursts. A quasi-pedigreed patina reveling in excruciating emotional turmoil. $40 million of DreamWorks' money!"

· Milk: "Well-made prestige Oscar bait. Sean Penn deserves credit for appearing likable on screen! I'm a gay man, and you're not."

· Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: "It was engaging-ish. This is no ordinary quartz skull that looks like an alien head! What about the cactus-LaBeouf-cockballtorture sequence? I mean, my friend liked it."

Must! Credit! Defamer!

• Reviewing the Movie Ads: Doubts About 'Doubt' [NYP]

We mean it! Take back his Nobel Prize! And boycott Blindness, while you're at it; that's the least you could do for a guy with grievances (after the jump) like NFB boss Marc Maurer's:

“The National Federation of the Blind condemns and deplores this film, which will do substantial harm to the blind of America and the world. Blind people in this film are portrayed as incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom. The truth is that blind people regularly do all of the same things that sighted people do. Blind people are a cross-section of society, and as such we represent the broad range of human capacities and characteristics. We are not helpless children or immoral, degenerate monsters; we are teachers, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, computer programmers, and social workers. ...

Portraying the blind on movie screens across America as little better than animals will reinforce the unfounded fears, misconceptions, and stereotypes in the general public about blindness. It will exacerbate the unemployment rate among the blind, which is already higher than 70 percent because of public misconceptions about the capabilities of blind people. It will reinforce false public notions that blind children are ineducable, that blind adults are unemployable, and that all blind people are socially undesirable.

What are they talking about? Haven't Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx and Patty Duke all won Oscars playing blind characters? People love these guys! Still, director Fernando Meirelles was unavailable for comment this morning, but Miramax — which has had problems with the film since before it was seemingly the 87th choice to open this year's Cannes Film Festival — has since issued a statement insisting that he "worked diligently to preserve the intent and resonance of the acclaimed book." The NFB is moving ahead anyway with protests in at least 21 states and "dozens of participants" wherever possible, setting up an awkward showdown between authorities urging protesters to observe the police perimeter around theaters and seeing-eye dogs slyly trained not to stop before leading their masters to the box office. If you think it's ugly now, just wait.

• NFB Condemns and Deplores the Movie Blindness [NFB]
• Blind activists plan protest of movie 'Blindness' [AP]

"He thinks he's going to . . . make John Travolta look like that was an amateur night in Dixie," says Weinstein in the 11-year-old recording, referring to Travolta's comeback in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.

Responds Tarantino: "He's still dealing with, subconsciously, the fact that he's not going to get paid for doing the thing that he's created after 20 years . . . He's built his reputation on roles like [Jackie Brown's]Louis . . . 'How can you not pay me?' "

At another point, Weinstein warns Tarantino he might get a "weird midnight phone call" from the star. Tarantino rages: "Tell Bob not to call me yelling and screaming . . . I don't know if I'm going to be nice [if] the guy calls up yelling and screaming at me like a maniac, calling me a [bleep]er!"

Better that than a terrifying, apostrophe-free email, we think, though we certainly wouldn't welcome a late-night tirade from the erstwhile Travis Bickle. Still, we can't help but think this all could have been avoided if De Niro had tempted Tarantino into a pay raise by appealing to his well-known foot fetish. Sure, it may be an ignominious thing for an Oscar-winning actor to doff his shoes and socks and wiggle his little piggies for gross points, but can it really be worse than Analyze That?

[Photo Credit: AP]

• COPING WITH DE NIRO FLIP-OUT [NY Post]

Ms. Smith is curly-haired and petite and wore a festive black-and-white print dress to lunch; Ms. McCullah Lutz, in a form-fitting turquoise dress, suggested a blonde Valkyrie. Ms. McCullah Lutz seemed more serious, Ms. Smith more bubbly. But they said the key to their personalities is in their dogs: Ms. McCullah Lutz owns a Maltese; Ms. Smith, pit bulls. ...

Their M.O. consists of writing beside Ms. McCullah Lutz’s pool (both live in neighborhoods on the funkier east side of Hollywood) and presenting a united front to those studio executives who would tamper with their work. But sometimes, they conceded, the questions can lead somewhere. When Disney asked for additional motivation for the comedian Larry Miller’s overprotective, pregnancy-obsessed father in 10 Things, they made him a gynecologist. Other times, they said, studio participation can be perplexing. ...

Ms. McCullah Lutz, referring to Ella Enchanted: “Miramax is the only studio that’s ever told us to add” a flatulence joke.

Ms. Smith: “Which I was very excited about.”

Keep in mind, of course, that this was Miramax circa 2004 — an extraordinary stroke of luck for the forthcoming pilot, in which a lumbering studio mogul named Marty Feinstein summons the women to his office on the Disney lot for a hi-larious exchange "clearing the air about clearing the air." Indeed, we smell Emmy.

• Women (Real and Fictional) Defying Expectations

We've reported on The Weinstein Company's troubles. Whether the film producer's magic gut has left him, or he simply faces more competition for buzzy film projects, Harvey Weinstein's track record of releases has been disappointing since leaving Disney's Miramax, where he shepherded modern classics such as Shakespeare in Love. (The once-bullish film producer doesn't even have the confidence to finance Quentin Tarantino's next project.) The Weinstein Company's own backers, led by Goldman Sachs, are rumored to be reconsidering their support. And the independent mini-conglomerate's forays into media sectors other than movie-making have been mixed at best. (Fashion TV show Project Runway is a money-spinner but social network A Small World has tiny traffic.)

None of that matters, if one was to believe the spin: the Weinsteins' 70% stake in a home video distributor called Genius Products was worth more than $400m, "an asset that could be sold one day if they are strapped for cash," Fortune relayed a year ago. Even in November, Weinstein's CFO told the magazine that Genius had performed "beyond our wildest hopes."

Well, the Weinsteins are certainly behaving as if they're indeed strapped for cash, squeezing every last dollar from cable networks and marketers such as L'Oreal for rights to roles in Project Runway; but it's not clear whether there's any asset that can be sold for cash in an emergency.

The news hasn't really percolated out of the specialist home video press, but Genius Products' share price has declined by 93% in the last 12 months. Genius' DVD business has suffered as online distribution of movies and cable pay-per-view has taken off. A board member and the company's chief financial officer left recently, after the company admitted that it would not meet its aggressive earnings estimates. Last year, company executives forecast $1bn in revenues for 2008.

The public float of the company is worth just $12.85m, which would put the value of the Weinsteins' shareholding at $30m if my math is right. And that won't be enough to shore up the troubled film producers if The Weinstein Company's debt financing is as precarious as Hollywood's rumor mill suggests.

The souring of the Genius investment is uncomfortable in many ways. Not least, the deal was brought to Weinstein by his own backers. Steve Bannon, a buccaneering banker who took over the company in 2004, used to work at investment bank Goldman Sachs and it was his old firm that put him together with the movie maker that they were themselves supporting. Larger-than-life Weinstein, who had long wanted to wheel and deal like a media mogul rather than a penny-pinching movie hustler, thought he was up for a big payday. Everybody was happy. And now they're not.

But isn't this the same festival that opened in 2006 with The Da Vinci Code? Just how bad is "bad"?

Look at it this way: Festival organizers knew what they wanted two years ago, announcing Da Vinci's selection in January of 2006 — nearly four months before it screened. Moreover, Sony knew what it had: A shabby, critic-proof, mass-market lark. Cannes' previous two openers were different — Lemming (2005) and Bad Education (2004) were announced April 19 and Feb. 21 of their respective years. Wong Kar-wai's 2007 opener My Blueberry Nights was locked in by April 19 of last year. We're pushing May Day, and the odds-on favorite for 2008 — which most observers were already surprised to see left off the competition slate last week — has yet to receive the festival's official blessing.

Director Fernando Mereilles was being either skeptical or falsely modest a few months back when he told one of us in a interview: "I'd love to take it to Cannes. I don't know if I'm going to get a slot, but I'd love to. It's a very dark story. But that's our goal. It's sold all over the world — there will be some support." Hey, man, you don't need to convince us. Also, we know there have been at least a few Miramax test screenings, and if the studio knows it has a misfire on its hands, the last thing it wants is to sacrifice it publicly four months before Oscar season.

If it were up to us, we'd just insist that Cannes get Indiana Jones 4 out of the way on opening night and let the rest of the fest speak for itself. But if it's not Blindness, what else should we be looking for? Four hours of Che? We'd take anything at this point.

UPDATE: Surely in swift response to our well-placed suspicions, the Cannes Film Festival just officially announced Blindness as its opening-night selection. Confirming other speculation in its same dispatch, the fest also named the Barry Levinson/Robert De Niro pairing What Just Happened? as its closing-night film.

• 'Blindness' Tipped to open Cannes [Variety]

The Miriam Collection, named after the brothers' mother, launched in late January with the release of one of the last great epics not previously available on DVD, Anthony Mann's El Cid.

Weinstein clearly relishes being able to play kingmaker and give deserving films the true DVD VIP treatment, a la the fabled Criterion Collection.

The Fall of the Roman Empire, for example, is fully loaded," Harvey Weinstein said. "It looks and sounds astonishing, and the bonus materials fully explore the sheer magnitude and grandeur of making a film of this scale in a time long before the advent of CGI."

• Weinsteins start upscale DVD label [Yahoo]
• Meet The New Harvey [Fortune]

The producer of the smash hit musical film "Chicago" contends some razzle-dazzle Hollywood accounting has left him shortchanged by $10 million, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

He claims the financial statements he receives from Miramax are "omissive, false and misleading" because they understate revenue from video and DVD sales and foreign release, while overstating overhead. Richards produced the original Broadway production of "Chicago" in 1975 and bought the film rights for $505,000. According to the suit, he has received at least $500,000 in producing fees from Miramax.

Richards may have a difficult road ahead of him if he plans on proving to the court that Weinstein-era Miramax was "overstating overhead." After all, this was a company whose financial model could be best summed up by their motto "How much of Disney's money can we spend today?" It's more than likely the producer's missing $10 mil was squandered on promotional extravagances easily obscured in the promotional budget, such as that year's Oscar party buffet, replete with truffle-and-tropical-fruit sculptures in the shape of Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones doing the Charleston.

• Miramax cheating me, sez 'Chicago' producer [NY Daily News]

"If they keep taking pictures of us together people will think that I'm actually in the movie," Ben Affleck told "Tsotsi" writer/director Gavin Hood and "Desperate Housewives" star Alfre Woodard while they posed at the film's premiere at the Pacific Design Center on Wednesday night.

Affleck, who dropped by because he's directing a film for "Tsotsi" distributor Miramax, didn't stay around to actually watch the intriguing South African Oscar nominee for best foreign language film. But after the snappy photo session, he promised Woodard and a rep from Artists for a New South Africa that he and wife Jennifer Garner would try to visit the country. Then he scooted down the escalator.

Affleck probably knew that he could get away with ditching the premiere and some vague promises about trying to visit South Africa ("we'll try" is Hollywood for "fuck you for putting me on the spot like that") with new Miramax head Daniel Battsek (pictured above at the photo op with Affleck). If this had been an event for the new Weinstein Company, however, Affleck would've not only stayed for the movie, he would've bought a ticket to South Africa on the spot, knowing that failure to play along would prompt Harvey Weinstein to mail him his wife's pinky toe in a ring box.

• Hi Ben, bye Ben [LA Daily News]
• Miramax trots 'Tsotsi' [Variety]
• Previously: Director Knows He s Not Required To Kiss Absent Ben Affleck s Ass [Defamer]]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=157308&view=rss&microfeed=true With Miramax releasing the Tsotsi, the first movie of the Daniel Battsek regime this weekend, it's a convenient time to discuss How The New Guy Is Not As Crazy As The Weinsteins. Offers the LAT:

  Most important to his boss, Battsek plays well with others. The Weinsteins, whose feistiness was sometimes accompanied by hot tempers, never saw themselves as Disney "cast members" and largely shunned working with other Disney divisions.

  As any former Miramaxer whose bowels instantly loosen upon the mention of the name Harvey will gladly tell you, the Weinsteins are "feisty" like a pair of pitbulls let loose in a phone booth full of poodles in sweaters made of bacon. But choosing a team player like Battsek makes sense for Disney; any executive charged with maintaining the continuity of fear established by the legendarily "enthusiastic" brothers would probably have to overcompensate by roaming the office and randomly stabbing employees in the neck with a letter opener, and they can't risk further morale problems at a division already decimated by layoffs.

  • New President Must Fill Large Shoes at Miramax [LAT]
  • Previously: Tom Ford Transforms The Weinsteins [Defamer]
  ]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=156587&view=rss&microfeed=true The Envelope reports that Lionsgate had to disclose exactly what its been spending on its For Your Consideration assault for Crash, letting us know exactly what the studio is willing to spend to buy itself an Oscar. The total's up to $4 million (against the movie's reported $6.5 million budget) for the entire awards-season campaign, with the last couple of million coming after the movie snagged its nominations in the only contest that matters:

  Just before Oscar nominations closed, Lions Gate earmarked another $500,000. After "Crash" scored six Oscar nominations — best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best song, best editing and best supporting actor for Matt Dillon — yet another $1.5 million was budgeted.

  On a conference call with analysts Friday, Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer called spending the extra $2 million a "prudent investment."

  Here's why: Feltheimer estimates an Oscar win could provide a windfall of as much as $10 million, because Lions Gate would would sell more DVDs, and get more money when "Crash" is shown on TV.

  Of course, the numbers are really only shocking if you consider them in isolation. (Or if you consider they're flushing it down Crash's toilet.) $2 million is hardly a fart in a financial hurricane when you realize that Harvey Weinstein probably kept that much in his petty cash drawer to pay off all the hookers he had to hire to push Shakespeare in Love to victory over Saving Private Ryan back in Miramax's good old days, then have them "disappear" after their mission of persuasion was completed.

  • Oscar Economics 101 [The Envelope]
  • Previously: Crash Screener Blast Births A Movement [Defamer]
  ]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=154528&view=rss&microfeed=true The deadline for Academy members to cast their votes might be weeks away, but we're ready to call one of the races right now. And the Oscar for Most Disingenuous Quote In Response To An Awards Snub goes to...Harvey Weinstein, for Proof, as he tells the NY Observer:

  “Proof is one of my favorite movies and Gwyneth gave one of the best performances I’ve ever seen,” Harvey Weinstein e-mailed yesterday. “I’m really disappointed she was not nominated.”

  Weinstein loved Proof so much that he sat on it for over a year before finally putting it out on his way out at Miramax, making it an especially cherished element of the touching "See You In Hell, Disney!" fruitbasket that included cinematic masterworks The Brothers Grimm, The Great Raid, and The Underclassman. Nothing says, "Love your work, Gwynnie" like a token release at the tail end of a messy divorce.

  • Oscar, You Insensitive Lout [NY Observer]
  • Previously: Weinstein Flips Disney The Bird On His Way Out The Door [Defamer]
  ]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=152103&view=rss&microfeed=true Many things, it seems, went wrong with The Brothers Grimm, one of 2005's more resounding box office bombs. Big-budget movie production is a delicate, interconnected affair, so who's to say that an error in producer Harvey Weinstein's fuckability calculus, which led to casting little-known actress Lena Headley instead of an Oscar-nominated treasure, didn't contribute to its failure? From The Scoop:

  “Samantha Morton! You must be kidding me!” Weinstein said, director Gilliam told Bob McCabe, author of the book "Dreams and Nightmares," which has just been published in the U.K. “You think Matt or Heath would want to [bleep] that?”

  The F-test is a tricky thing, and while its previous application for these particular actors might have yielded awards-quality chemistry with Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain, it can just as easily doom the entire affair.

  • ‘Grimm’ disagreement (second item) [MSNBC]
  ]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=143090&view=rss&microfeed=true Is there any colder dish of revenge than one served from the grave? True, Harvey Weinstein's final all-bomb slate of Miramax releases may not look great lumped together on his IMDb profile, but the demonic jollies he's no doubt getting over Disney's $313 million cliff-dive more than makes up for it:

  Amid encouraging early returns this month for the animated film Chicken Little, a flock of box-office turkeys came home to roost Thursday for Walt Disney Co.

  
  A $313-million loss from Disney's film unit caused the Burbank company's fourth-quarter profit to fall 27% to $379 million. Disappointments included "Dark Water" and several poorly performing Miramax films.[...]

  [M]ost of the blame fell to the anemic performance of the company's movies, including three Miramax films: The Great Raid, The Brothers Grimm and Underclassman. The three were among a rush of titles the studio had agreed to release by Sept. 30, the date Miramax founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein formally cut their ties to Disney.

  Having survived the shock to the system provided by Harvey's Old Timey Miramax Dud Colonic, a relieved and optimistic Disney is no doubt hoping to recoup and rebuild, with their eyes falling on one Christlike figure onto whom they can pin those dreams. Rumors have it that certain boardroom members are going so far as to dub the post-Weinstein years "The Golden Era of the Zach Braff Farm Animal Voiceover."

  • Weak Box Office Drags on Disney Profit [LAT]
  • Previously: Betting On The New Harvey Weinstein [Defamer]
  ]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=138240&view=rss&microfeed=true