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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:35
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
Weinstein, in a typical Weinstein move, ignored the edict and signed the film anyway. He probably figured Eisner wasn't long for Disney, a miscalculation that could cost him dearly. |
I think you got it right, and that's why Moore tried to keep things under wraps for the past year. He was probably hoping that Eisner's days were numbered too.
I wouldn't be surprised if Roy Disney was using this as ammo to attack Eisner.
As for interviews, this is from the New York Times story:
Mr. Moore, who will present the film at the Cannes film festival this month, criticized Disney's decision in an interview on Tuesday, saying, "At some point the question has to be asked, `Should this be happening in a free and open society where the monied interests essentially call the shots regarding the information that the public is allowed to see?' "
Who leaked the story? Moore told the BBC that he went public because someone leaked the info to the NY Times.
But again, the timing of the leak doesn't matter. Disney tried to block the film last year. If Disney succeeds then that sends a message to the rest of the industry and we all know the Hollywood types don't like taking chances. Other distributors, particularly those controlled by mega-corporations might well decide that if Disney is afraid of a backlash then they should be too.
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:35
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MM has been a "liberal champion" since R&Me, which grossed almost $7,000,000, unheard of for a documentary at that time. B4C grossed $21,000,000, fyi.
His worst showing was for "Canadian Bacon" a film that didn't even gross $200,000, which he then followed up with TB1, which didn't break $700,000.
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:35
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The truly funny thing is that Weinstein is a money-grubbing ******* who loves nothing more than using contractese and financial skullduggery to screw every dime out of his players (directors, actresses, etc). From Soderbergh with "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" to Kevin Smith and "Chasing Amy"/"Clerks" to Saul Zaentz with "The English Patient", every single one of them have complained that Harvey didn't pay them what they were owed, with many, many stars never working for Miramax again. Even Gwyneth Paltrow, the "queen of Miramax", has sworn never to work for a Miramax production again, which she hasn't since 2000 (other than 2003s "A View From the Top", which MM was the third listed production company (underneath Brad Grey Pictures and Cohen Productions)).
The only one of his coeterie (sp?) that has stuck by him in the past decade is Quentin Tarantino, who inked a deal in 1994 that gave him a larger percentage of gross/video/dvd sales than ever before seen in the industry, along with complete creative control.
Last edited by JohnT on 06-05-2004 at 23:45
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:35
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Here's a good opinion piece about the controversy.
quote:
The two biggest Hollywood stories of Tuesday came, oddly, not from Hollywood-based journalists, but from a New York Times reporter out of Washington and a two marketing beat guys at the Wall Street Journal.
The first story was the more serious. Everyone has kind of known for the last year or so that Miramax's decision to pick up Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 was going to cause trouble. Well, here we are, people heading out the door to Cannes where the film will premiere, and the whole thing has gone public.
From what I can figure, Miramax started floating the issue within the journalistic community a few weeks ago. Jeff Wells, after chatting with non-Miramax sources, got hot about the apparent title change from "Fahrenheit 9-11" to Fahrenheit 911. But he missed, probably to the irritation of the Moore and Miramax teams, the bigger point… Disney was as unwilling to let a division of their company release the film this summer as they were last summer.
Moore finally started his inevitably endless whine with a reporter on Tuesday, though it is unclear in the article whether that interview was the genesis of the story. In a classic act of Moore-ish onanism, the Oscar-winning documentarian took $6 million from Miramax, making Fahrenheit 911 one of the most expensive documentaries ever made. After feasting on this capital from the "independent" division of a multinational, he brays to the Times, "At some point the question has to be asked, `Should this be happening in a free and open society where the monied interests essentially call the shots regarding the information that the public is allowed to see?"
Well, if ya don't want those "monied interests" to make decisions, Mike… Don't Take Their Friggin' Six Million Dollars!!!!! Adding to the pathetic nature of this scam, please be aware that Moore probably has $6 million himself and could have self-financed or sold select foreign markets to get enough money to get well within range of his production budget. What was his salary on this $6 million doc? And how much of the budget was based on the speed of completion of the film so that Moore could feel he might influence this year's election. Perhaps he feels the federal government should give him matching funds.
The reps of both Disney and Miramax pretty much said what they would be expected to say… "no" and "we're hopeful they'll let us do what we want." The reality for Disney, in my opinion, is that this film is far more dangerous for them than Miramax releasing a quality NC-17 movie. Not only will this film become a source of boisterous debate in the middle of an election cycle - as Moore intends it to be - but Disney would have to contend with Moore shooting off his mouth, as he tends to do when promoting movies. And having experienced it personally I can tell you, his exaggerations have an occasional tendency to become outright manipulative lies.
Cannes is the reason why the parade of verbosity has started up. By the time the film premieres, it will be held up, especially in the foreign press, as some sort of referendum on freedom of the American media. Think about it… one of the greatest self-promoters of his generation teamed up with one of the greatest marketing minds of his generation with Michael Eisner as the mutual enemy, stuck in a no-win situation. If Eisner lets Miramax distribute the film, he will be attacked by the right (a group that just coughed up the majority of The Passion of The Christ's $365 million-plus domestic gross and represents a significant portion of Disney's theme park patronage) and there will be an absurd amount attention paid to the political leanings of Disney-owned ABC News and other subsidiaries. If he sticks to his long-held (pre-production) position that no Disney company will distribute the film, he will be attacked by Moore and others for months and months and months as the worst kind of right wing apologist and censor.
No matter how successful Bowling for Columbine was, no one else in the marketplace is about to take a documentary off Miramax and Disney's hands at a cost of $6 million. Ironically, the "O" solution - distribution through Lions Gate - is now being floated, along with the idea that Eisner will block such an idea. Forgotten, perhaps, is the fact that Miramax had to be sued for breach of their distribution contract with that film's producers in order to get Miramax to move the film to Lions Gate. Additionally, Miramax's "marketing control" was actually Miramax being contractually required to provide P&A money, a responsibility which Lions Gate was not willing to assume when the took on the successful ($16 million) distribution of the film.
Ari Emmanuel, Moore's agent and apparently an intentional combatant in this verbal war, also threw out the first pitch in the "dumping the film is financial irresponsibility on Eisner's part" derby. That was in Variety. In the New York Times, he goes the other way, accusing Eisner of greed and, dare I say it, corporate responsibility: "(Eisner) definitely indicated there were tax incentives he was getting for the Disney corporation and that's why he didn't want me to sell it to Miramax. He didn't want a Disney company involved."
I have to say, it is odd to find myself defending Michael Eisner and Disney for the second time in just a few short weeks. But demagoguery is not attractive, regardless of what your role in the industry or your personal politics. And neither Michael Moore nor Harvey Weinstein, who has remained silent so far, has any position from which to claim status as a victim.
There is a huge difference between Michael Moore's six million polemic and some documentarian having his or her film bought and squashed by the distributor for political reasons. In fact, Oliver Stone has a much more reasonable beef with Time-Warner for forcing him to rethink his HBO-financed point-of-view doc about Castro than Moore has with Disney. I didn't like the shallow perception of Castro in Stone's original doc, but HBO didn't tell him that he had to make a balanced film… until the political heat revved up after people saw it. On the other hand, Disney made it clear to Miramax and Moore that this film would never see the light of day under any Disney banner back before the Miramax financing deal closed.
Could this film become the straw that breaks the backs of both Eisner and Bush? Perhaps. Eisner has no great option here. If I were strategizing with him, I would be trying to figure out a way to force Roy Disney and Stanley Gold into taking a position before things went too much further. I suspect that Roy would not really want Disney distributing Moore's attack on George Bush. According to various sources, he is a right-winger (unlike his sidekick, Stanley Gold). But his behavior in the last year would suggest that he might be willing to back any effort that is bad for Eisner. On the other hand, if Eisner decides to encourage distribution of this point-of-view doc and commits the company to eating the costs of production if the film is not highly profitable, Roy Disney might come out and say he is being fiscally irresponsible that way. (This idea, by the way, is my suggested course. Come out for freedom of speech, acknowledge that - as with The Passion - deeply emotional films are problematic for major corporations to distribute, and encourage Miramax publicly to find an alternate distributor without penalizing Miramax for having made the deal… perhaps set up the deal so that Dinsey gets paid back and gives all profits to a non-partisan not-for-profit.) |
Looks like I might have been wrong about who started this fight (but note that the author does lay the blame in regards to this week's running of it squarely on MM's shoulders).
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:35
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
However, this cheap attempt at publicity and MM's comments about his "innocence" doesn't help his case. |
quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
Weinstein inked a contract in violation of direct orders from Disney. Disney told them a YEAR ago that they were not going to release the movie, and Weinstein signed the deal anyway (in October, IIRC).
The one at fault here is Harvey Weinstein. To be honest, no surprise there.
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So if Weinstein is to blame then Moore is justified in saying that he is being unfairly screwed. Moore entered into a contract with Miramax in good faith and delivered his side of the bargain. Now, Disney is forcing Miramax to screw him.
The victim here is Moore.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:35
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
Looks like I might have been wrong about who started this fight (but note that the author does lay the blame in regards to this week's running of it squarely on MM's shoulders). |
It clear that this guy also has it out for Moore. He's one of these guys who can find no right in anything Moore does.
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06-05-2004 09:57
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