Miramax is "basically dead"
This has been coming for some time, and after recent shakeups at Disney, is really no great surprise. Now Daniel Battsek, the current president of Miramax, has announced that he'll step down at the end of January 2010. At the same time, Disney will relocate the label from New York City to Disney's headquarters in Burbank, CA, where they'll reduce Miramax's output to just three films a year. The label that launched Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith and was the biggest face of the '90s indie explosion is basically dead.
OK, the real end of the era hit four years ago, when the Weinstein brothers left Miramax, the company they built into an indie juggernaut. The years since then have been an extended coda for Miramax as it soldiered on at Disney. We've known for some time that Miramax would be cutting back, and that move was seen as part of the death knell of the indie in general. But Battsek's exit is a surprise, as Disney had recently said that he would "continue to oversee all aspects of creative, development, production and business and legal affairs." Corporate climates change fast.
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This has been coming for some time, and after recent shakeups at Disney, is really no great surprise. Now Daniel Battsek, the current president of Miramax, has announced that he'll step down at the end of January 2010. At the same time, Disney will relocate the label from New York City to Disney's headquarters in Burbank, CA, where they'll reduce Miramax's output to just three films a year. The label that launched Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith and was the biggest face of the '90s indie explosion is basically dead.
OK, the real end of the era hit four years ago, when the Weinstein brothers left Miramax, the company they built into an indie juggernaut. The years since then have been an extended coda for Miramax as it soldiered on at Disney. We've known for some time that Miramax would be cutting back, and that move was seen as part of the death knell of the indie in general. But Battsek's exit is a surprise, as Disney had recently said that he would "continue to oversee all aspects of creative, development, production and business and legal affairs." Corporate climates change fast.
More...
