The Weinstein Company

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The Weinstein Company LLC
Privately Held
Industry Film
Founded March 10, 2005
Founder Bob Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein
Headquarters New York City, New York, USA
Products Motion Pictures
Number of employees
 200[1]
Divisions Dimension Films
Dimension Extreme
Ovation TV (owned with Hubbard Media Group)
Dragon Dynasty (jointly owned by Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment)
Third Rail Releasing
TWC-Dimension
Radius-TWC
Kaleidoscope TWC
The Miriam Collection
Subsidiaries Starz Distribution (25%) (75% owned by Starz Inc.)
Website www.weinsteinco.com

The Weinstein Company (TWC) is an American mini-major film studio founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2005 after the brothers left the then-Disney-owned Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979. They retained ownership of the Dimension Films label of Miramax. It is one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America.[2]

History

Their first releases in 2005 included the dramatic thriller Derailed (starring Jennifer Aniston, Vincent Cassel and Clive Owen), the offbeat comedy-drama Transamerica (starring Felicity Huffman) the computer-animated family film Hoodwinked, the World War II–era comedy-drama Mrs Henderson Presents (starring Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins), and the caper comedy The Matador (starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear).

In February 2006, TWC announced a distribution pact with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.[3] MGM distributed the product domestically in theatres, while TWC will retain long-term ownership of their product. On July 13, 2006, the Weinsteins and Robert L. Johnson announced the creation of a joint venture studio titled Our Stories Films, which will distribute African-American-oriented films.[4] In late August 2006, it was announced that TWC and co-investors Hubbard Media Group purchased Ovation TV, an arts-focused cable channel.[5] In November 2006, TWC announced a three-year deal with Blockbuster Video to give the video renting company exclusive rights for rentals starting on January 1, 2007.[6] However, under the First Sale Doctrine of United States copyright law, other rental companies are able to rent copies of the company's movies purchased at retail.

The company is the co-producer, along with Miramax, of the Lifetime reality series Project Runway, which for its first five seasons aired on Bravo. The series won a Peabody Award in 2007.[7]

On May 23, 2007, the Weinstein Company announced the launch of three new direct-to-video labels: The Miriam Collection, Kaleidoscope TWC, and Dimension Extreme.[8][9]

On February 8, 2008, TWC launched a distributor called Third Rail Releasing that released films aimed mainly at the home video market.[10] On September 25, 2008, TWC ended its three-year distribution pact with MGM three months before the December 31 end date. This happened in part because TWC had struck a television output deal with Showtime, though not through MGM's output deal with them. During the span of their pact, TWC paid for marketing and prints, while MGM received a distribution fee for booking theatres.[11]

In 2009, TWC might have lost the rights to the movie Sin City 2. The first film cost only 40 million dollars to make and brought in almost 159 million in box office alone.[12] Weinstein Company lawyer Bert Fields quickly denied this report saying "TWC's rights to produce sequels to Sin City remain intact as they always have been. Any suggestion to the contrary is complete hogwash."[13][14] In June 2009, the Weinstein Company announced the hiring of a financial adviser to restructure the finances of the company.[15] Since July 2009, many layoffs occurred at TWC, and the release dates of some films were pushed back.[16][17] On September 14, 2009, TWC terminated its stake in Genius Products, which served as TWC's home video distributor from 2006 to 2009. Genius however, had announced to exit the home video distribution business and the DVD rights that were distributed by Genius were sold to Vivendi Entertainment. TWC also struck a deal with Vivendi.[18] The same year, it won a Peabody Award for The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency.[19]

In January 2010, TWC announced more layoffs at the company after the box office failure of Nine.[20] On February 21, 2010, The Weinstein Company made a deal with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment releasing the DVDs through Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group.[21] Bob and Harvey Weinstein attempted to buy back Miramax from Disney in 2010, but the attempt was unsuccessful.[22]

An ownership interest in TWC's library at that point, consisting of 200 titles, was sold off to Goldman Sachs and Assured Guaranty in 2010.[23] The sale freed TWC from bankruptcy. Goldman Sachs' stake in the library was purchased by AMC Networks in 2015. According to Deadline Hollywood: "The library will revert to the Weinstein Company itself when the remaining debt has been paid off by the films in question."[24]

On January 4, 2011, the Weinstein Company has agreed to acquire a 25% stake in Starz Media. Because of this, Starz Media subsidiary Anchor Bay Entertainment became the home video distributor for all TWC films.[25] On February 3, 2011, the Weinsteins extracted a $75 million consolation prize from their former parent company, Disney, thus improving their filmmaking career. As a result, Disney handed over its 50% stake in Project Runaway, and reduced its share in four jointly owned films, including Scary Movie and Spy Kids, from 50% to 5%.[26] On February 27, 2011, TWC's distributed film The King's Speech brought to the company their first Academy Award for Best Picture at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, after their last Best Picture Oscar winner Chicago won in 2002 when Bob and Harvey Weinstein were at Miramax, controlled by then corporate owner Disney, and their previous Best Picture nominees for TWC were 2008's The Reader and 2009's Inglourious Basterds, the latter film a co-production with Universal Pictures and A Band Apart.[27] In March 2011, the company formed a video game division named TWC Games.[28] TWC Games formed a strategic consultancy with Beefy Media, a video game production company, to foster relationships with publishers and create high-quality games.[28]

On February 26, 2012, after TWC's purchase of the rights to release Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist in the United States, which won the prestigious Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Jean Dujardin, The Artist won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. This is the second consecutive Oscar for Best Picture awarded to the Weinstein Company. The last independent mini-major to win back-to-back Oscars for Best Picture was Orion Pictures for their films Dances with Wolves in 1990 and The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

TWC distributes films on multiple formats (including video-on-demand) through its Radius-TWC brand.[29] In September 2013, Bob and Harvey Weinstein launched the TWC-Dimension label to distribute projects that they both share interest in.[30]

On November 4, 2013, TWC announced they have picked up U.S. distribution rights to the British drama series Peaky Blinders from Endemol.[31]

In December 2013, Miramax and TWC entered a 20-year joint-venture agreement to develop and produce films, TV series, and stage shows. The deal will allow the Weinsteins to exploit the 700-film Miramax library. Sequels to Rounders and Shakespeare in Love are among the films being developed under this new deal, and series based on Good Will Hunting and Flirting with Disaster are being planned as well. Other developments include a Stephen Colbert-written film titled The Alibi, and an adaptation of Liz Jensen's novel The 9th Life of Louis Drax, that late filmmakers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack intended to make. Miramax will put up the financing and handle international sales while the Weinstein Company will develop the projects and distribute the titles domestically.[32]

In May 2014, the company entered into a five-year multi-picture financing agreement with Worldview Entertainment.[33]However, Worldview financed only the period drama Tulip Fever due to financial difficulties as a result of the departure of CEO, Christopher Woodrow.

In April 2015, The Weinstein Company was closing in on a deal to sell its TV division to British network ITV for $950 million but the deal was grounded in May. That same year, the company announced that around 40-50 layoffs would occur due to the box office failure of the comedy-drama Burnt among other factors.[34] Shortly after, the company announced they would no longer release the normal 18 films per year, instead the company will release 8-10 films per year, and will make fewer acquisitions at film festivals.[35]

Weinstein Books

Originally launched as Miramax Books by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2001, the imprint was reborn in 2009 as Weinstein Books, a joint publishing venture between The Weinstein Company and The Perseus Book Group, publishing a range of general interest fiction, both literary and commercial, along with media-driven non-fiction and YA titles.[36][37]

Since 2012 Weinstein Books has been under the creative management of Publishing Director Georgina Levitt and Editorial Director Amanda Murray.[38] Publicity Director Kathleen Schmidt joined Weinstein Books in 2013.[39]

Weinstein Books works in collaboration with The Weinstein Company to create book tie-ins to films such as My Week With Marilyn, Bully By Lee Hirsch and Cynthia Lee and One Chance by Paul Potts.[40]

International distributors

Australia and New Zealand

Canada

UK and Ireland

France

Indonesia

Spain

Films

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Main article: List of The Weinstein Company films

Highest-grossing films

Highest-grossing films
Rank Title Year Domestic gross Notes
1 Django Unchained 2012 $162,805,434
2 The King's Speech 2010 $135,453,143
3 Silver Linings Playbook 2012 $132,092,958
4 Inglourious Basterds 2009 $120,540,719 Jointly released with Universal Pictures internationally.
5 The Butler 2013 $116,632,095
6 The Imitation Game 2014 $91,125,683
7 Scary Movie 4 2006 $90,710,620 Released under Dimension Films brand.
8 Paddington 2015 $76,223,578 Produced in the United Kingdom by StudioCanal
9 Escape From Planet Earth 2013 $57,012,977
10 Southpaw 2015 $52,421,953

References

  1. ↑ Weinstein Co. lets go of 24, a November 21, 2008 article from The Hollywood Reporter
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ "PRNewswire" The RLJ Companies Launches 'Our Stories Films' in Association With The Weinstein Company prnewswire.com, Retrieved on November 12, 2012
  5. ↑ "Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ How The Weinstein Company ruined Home Entertainment – /FILM
  7. ↑ 67th Annual Peabody Awards, May 2008.
  8. ↑ Dade Hayes "Variety" May 23, 2007 Weinsteins launch three new labels variety.com, Retrieved on September 7, 2013
  9. ↑ Genius Products
  10. ↑ "Bloody Disgusting" Weinstein Company Launches Third Rail Releasing bloody-disgusting.com, Retrieved on November 13, 2012
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 'Sin City 2' and Weinstein Co.: What's going on?
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Weinstein terminates stake in Genius Products-paper, uk.reuters.com
  19. ↑ 69th Annual Peabody Awards, May 2010.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Weinstein Company Seals Sony DVD Deal, deadline.com
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Weinsteins Buy 25% Stake In Starz Media, deadline.com
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Dean Takahashi, VentureBeat. "The English Patient The Video Game Artsy Film Makers at The Weinstein Co Form Video Game Division". March 25, 2011.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ "Endemol" THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY ACQUIRES U.S. RIGHTS TO PEAKY BLINDERS endemol.com, Retrieved on November 12, 2013
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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