Ambitious Miramax Gets Lost in ‘Tweener’ Land

The Oscar snub delivered to Miramax’s “Cold Mountain” has been picked apart by entertainment industry insiders with as much energy as political pundits parsing the primaries. The picture, stunningly mounted and chock-full of exceptional performances, was every bit as good as several of the films that got a best picture nomination.

Was it merely a victim of this year’s truncated awards season, released too late for the Miramax Oscar campaign to shift into overdrive, as company co-chairman Harvey Weinstein has said? Or was it that academy voters, still smarting from last year’s high jinks -- Robert Wise’s Miramax-penned endorsement of “Gangs of New York” -- had had enough of Weinstein’s bullying? Weinstein is not popular in Hollywood, and the image of him clutching his Oscar after the 1998 triumph of “Shakespeare in Love” has not been forgotten. (He took only an executive producer credit on “Cold Mountain,” so, had it won, he would not have set foot on stage.

More interesting than the popularity contest, however, is what the “Cold Mountain” snub tells us about the pitfalls that the mini-major, Miramax, faces in the future. Its edge has always been its ability to squeeze value out of a movie -- that is, to mount productions that look twice as expensive as they actually are, packed with stars working for a fraction of their usual asking price. By keeping the budgets low on his own productions and filling out the company’s slate with acquisitions, Weinstein has been able to conduct a volume business. He has thrown as many as 30 or 40 films a year against the wall, seeing which ones stick and then moving his marketing resources behind those.

But for Weinstein, enough is just never enough. He has made no secret of the fact that he wants to compete with the majors, not least since Miramax was acquired by Disney in 1993. In 1999, he scored with the Freddie Prinze Jr. teen comedy “She’s All That.” According to Kevin Smith, director of “Clerks,” who was present when Disney CEO Michael Eisner chided Weinstein for turning his back on his “quality” brand, Weinstein replied that he wanted to prove he could make a high-grossing, utterly disposable movie “and compete on their level. And I did.”

Nothing would please him more than to drop the “mini” from “mini-major.” He has made no secret of the fact that he thinks he could run Disney better than Eisner. What this means is that Miramax must go after bigger, more expensive productions. Weinstein has even gotten himself a superhero franchise, buying the rights to “The Green Hornet.” In other words, he has turned his back on the business model that made Miramax into the power that it is today.

Of course, in addition to “Cold Mountain,” this year Miramax released a handful of terrific, low-budget films like “City of God” and “Dirty Pretty Things,” throwbacks to the old Miramax. Weinstein will always keep a hand in this business, in part because he is sensitive to the charge of selling out -- mostly, one suspects, because as he raises his sights he needs his indie street cred even more to convince stars to cut their rates.

In theory, there’s no reason Weinstein can’t pursue a two-pronged strategy -- spending big bucks on, say, “The Green Hornet” and acquiring a “Magdalena Sisters” at the same time. But what happens in practice is another story. Weinstein can’t bring himself to step up to the studio plate when it comes to meeting the prices of A-list stars he needs to drive a vehicle like “Cold Mountain,” or forking over the millions of marketing dollars the studios routinely spend.

Weinstein tried to get Tom Cruise for “Cold Mountain,” but Cruise wouldn’t cut his price. And why should he? Miramax is far from a genuine independent, can’t claim poverty and doesn’t have a monopoly on good material.

With a less bankable cast, “Cold Mountain” became an $80-million-plus “tweener,” neither a blockbuster studio movie nor a modest “indiewood” production like “Lost in Translation.” That made the best picture nomination all the more crucial -- such a nomination raised grosses on films by an average of 14% from 1991 to 2001. Now Weinstein will probably take a bath on “Cold Mountain,” as he did last year on “Gangs of New York.” And this year, he has no “Chicago” to bail him out.

For years, indie-watchers heralded every new upstart as the next Miramax, only to see one after another fall by the wayside. But today, a hundred Miramaxes are blooming, rushing to fill the niche Weinstein has vacated, supplying the “Lost in Translations,” the “Monsters,” the “21 Grams.” Miramax, meanwhile, is stumbling about in an uncertain netherworld between its indie past and its studio ambitions, neither mini nor major. Like “Cold Mountain,” it has become a tweener.