Miramax Finds Success Breeds Admiration, Envy

At the New York Film Critics Circle Awards dinner earlier this month, director Jim Jarmusch was presenting a prize to Robby Muller, cinematographer on “Breaking the Waves” and his own existential western “Dead Man.” Commending October Films for nurturing the former, he took aim at Miramax Films, distributor of the latter.

“Dead Man” had been seen at more private screenings than public ones, he said--suggesting that it had received inadequate support in the marketplace. The director’s comments were greeted by a round of applause--a reflection of what some in the movie industry see as a resentment toward Miramax’s style and success.

The Newark Star-Ledger’s Bob Campbell, chairman of the group, then took the stage and touted the marketing expertise of maverick independent Miramax, at the expense of one of its rivals. He said that if Miramax had handled “Shine,” “everyone in the country would be wearing raincoats with nothing on underneath”--a reference to Fine Line Features’ ad campaign.

Like the speakers at that banquet, Hollywood is of two minds about Miramax, founded by Harvey and Bob Weinstein in 1979 and acquired by the Walt Disney Co. in 1993. No one denies that the brothers have revolutionized independent film, expanding the market and paving the way for others outside the mainstream. But some have come to view the company as the indie film world equivalent of Microsoft--an unapologetic giant capable of smothering the competition.

Some industry executives say Miramax’s deep pockets have caused the price of acquiring independent films to skyrocket. And its release of a whopping 37 films last year into an already crowded marketplace exacerbated the art-house theater crunch, they contend.

“Harvey is a passionate man who leads with his chin,” said producer Jonathan Taplin, who engaged in a much-publicized shouting match with the Miramax chief at the Sundance Film Festival last year. “Though I wish there were more of him in the business, like that [William Randolph] Hearst character in ‘Citizen Kane,’ he wants to have all the films.”

Those films have turned Miramax into a success story inspiring both admiration and envy. The company showed the profit potential of specialized releases such as “My Left Foot” (1989), “The Crying Game” (1992) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994). Employing its now-famous marketing savvy, Miramax led the pack with 22 Oscar nominations two years ago and gained a 1995 best picture nomination for “Il Postino (The Postman).” Last year, Miramax movies grossed $250 million domestically, far outdistancing every other company in the art-house business.

“I think they were gutsier when they were independent and had less money,” said J. Hoberman, a film critic with the Village Voice.

To be sure, Miramax has embraced a broader-based strategy, dueling with the majors for more commercial fare. Two weeks ago, its Dimension Films, a division overseen by Bob Weinstein specializing in genre films such as “From Dusk Till Dawn” and “Scream,” paid $3.15 million for the rights to make a sequel to the sci-fi blockbuster “Total Recall.”

At the same time, it has taken a lavish approach to its art-house films, investing $27 million in the $33-million “The English Patient,” laying out $8 million for rookie director Billy Bob Thornton’s “Sling Blade” and $5 million for newcomer Doug Liman’s “Swingers,” and beginning to produce movies instead of simply acquiring them, observers say.

“Miramax is making bigger-budgeted films and competing with other studios for product,” said Amir Malin, co-managing executive at October, which, with “Breaking the Waves” and “Secrets & Lies,” is being likened to the Miramax of old. “And their Dimension label is taking over where New Line [“Nightmare on Elm Street”] left off.”

Like his partner, October’s Bingham Ray acknowledges the company’s debt to Miramax. But the Weinsteins’ lavish spending on acquisitions is taking a toll, he maintains. “Miramax is driving up the cost of movies. The price paid for ‘Swingers,’ ‘Sling Blade’ and ‘Shine’ [which Miramax didn’t buy but helped push the price up on] was much too high. The stakes have definitely been raised.”

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Harvey Weinstein, by far the more flamboyant and vocal of the pair, makes no apologies for entering the “Scream” and “Total Recall” business. Since genre movies are potentially so profitable, he says, “I’ll be happy to be the Robin Hood of film distributors, robbing from the rich--my brother--and giving to the poor--foreign language movies.”

He also defends his fiscal largess.

“Why should filmmakers live out of a sack and crews defer their salaries just because they work in the independent arena?” he asked. “And since Fox Searchlight, Gramercy and Sony Classics are all owned by multibillion-dollar conglomerates, criticizing us for deep pockets is a cheap shot. Why didn’t they pick up ‘The Postman’ and ‘Like Water for Chocolate’--the two top-grossing foreign language films of all time? Though we’re hitting on all cylinders now--producing [studio-type] movies like ‘Emma’ and ‘Flirting With Disaster’ for $6 million instead of $25 million--we still go for the fringe.”

“Trainspotting,” which dealt with heroin addiction; “Citizen Ruth,” an abortion-rights satire; and the controversial “Priest” and “Kids”--all released after the Disney acquisition--were hardly mainstream, Weinstein says. Nor is “The English Patient,” whatever its price tag.

It is ironic, says “English Patient” director Anthony Minghella, that the one man who embraced the complex movie is now branded as selling out.

“A movie whose central motif is Herodotus, focusing on a man suffering from burn injuries, is not the most prepossessing material in which to invest,” Minghella said of the film, which won the Golden Globe best picture award and is considered a front-runner in the Oscar race. “Yet Miramax rescued us after we closed down the film. I regarded them as angels--though, given what I’d heard about Harvey and Bob’s invasiveness, angels with claws.”

“Harvey Scissorhands,” as he is known in some quarters, never asked Minghella to trim the 2-hour, 42-minute film, although he did ask that “Sling Blade” be cut. “Harvey wants as much input as possible since he’s the one putting out the movie,” Thornton said. “But when I said I could go no further, he got behind it 100%. . . . He’s a showman, P.T. Barnum.”

Those critical of Miramax say that, like the major studios, it throws a heap of projects at the wall hoping a few will stick. Those that don’t, for the most part, still turn a profit because they’re channeled through the Disney pipeline into home video and TV syndication. Since Miramax has virtual autonomy--required only to clear any investment over $12.5 million with Disney--it has the best of both worlds: creative freedom plus an excellent risk-reward ratio.

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Because Miramax has so many movies, insiders say it waits until reviews come out to decide which ones to support. Producer Taplin, for one, didn’t like the odds. So when he was shopping the rights to “Shine” for his former employer, Pandora Films, he decided to go with Fine Line because it was releasing “seven films instead of 37.”

Miramax’s aggressiveness in acquiring films can rub people the wrong way. New York Times film critic Janet Maslin, who counts herself as an admirer of the Weinsteins, says: “[Smaller companies] say they can’t compete because Harvey has 10 people running around film festivals with walkie-talkies, with more money--cornering the market. It’s tough on small competitors.”

Harvey Weinstein, known for driving his 300 employees as hard as himself, is a master manipulator of the media--as adept at quashing unfavorable stories as at spinning positive ones.

Weinstein says he did the best he could with “Dead Man.” “With an art-house movie, you rely on the critics and promotional support from stars,” the executive said. “Seventy percent of the reviews were mixed to negative, and in the U.S., Johnny Depp basically just came to the premiere.”

Jarmusch could not be reached for comment.

When it comes to Oscar campaigns, his rivals say, Miramax is particularly over the top. “Some companies value an Oscar nomination more than the profitability of a film, living or dying with academy attention,” said Mitch Goldman, New Line’s head of marketing and distribution. “They justify it in terms of what they can say to a producer, director or star at the next festival--it’s a way of buying legitimacy.”

Weinstein counters that “I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” pointing out that he spends carefully--purchasing black-and-white, often partial-page ads, whereas the majors invest in full-page color spreads.

It has been said that no director would work with the company twice, but Weinstein responds that any such friction is old news. Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”), Kevin Smith (“Clerks”), Robert Rodriguez (“From Dusk Till Dawn”) and Doug McGrath (“Emma”) are among his ongoing relationships, he says.

“We’re more filmmaker-friendly since we’re no longer on the brink,” Weinstein said. “I have a lighter touch. . . . I’m hanging up my shears. I’m also trying to be more self-deprecating and take criticism constructively. Critics said that I didn’t do right by our Iranian movie ‘Through the Olive Trees’? I’ve decided to re-release it, probably this spring. Plus, we intend to reduce the number of our films to 28 this year.”

That the company is straddling that “gray area” between the majors and the independents further opens up the field, October’s Malin points out.

“Miramax and New Line are trying broader, more commercial films,” he said. “PolyGram, too, is all over the map, making ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ and ‘Sleepers.’ But this is a good time to be a niche player.”

Even if October were to be acquired, as has been rumored, “we won’t be making films with the lowest common denominator,” Malin added. “We had eight films in ‘96, will have 12 in 1997, and expect to max out at 12 to 15 in 1998. Our goal is not to increase volume but to expand our international scope.”

Whatever his drawbacks, many in the industry agree, Weinstein has a passion for film.

“Regardless of what you think of him, Harvey is closer to the old studio guys--[Darryl] Zanuck, [Harry] Cohn, [Louis B.] Mayer--than anyone we have,” said “Emma’s” McGrath. “No other studio would have let me cast Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead at that point. Harvey takes risks in a business practically devoid of it--and turns out movies you know won’t degrade you.”

Weinstein has a brassier take on his place in the movie business: “If I didn’t exist, they’d have to invent me--I’m the only interesting thing around.”

Elaine Dutka is a Times staff writer. John Clark is a freelance writer based in New York.