Seriously, what about Harvey?

Even hundreds of miles away from Hollywood, in the midst of this year’s bustling Toronto International Film Festival, which has become a strategic launching pad for dozens of Oscar-hopeful films, the subject of Harvey Weinstein is still the focus of intense cocktail chatter. Some ask in a furtive whisper, others with barely disguised glee, but the question is always the same: “What’s up with Harvey?” There have been no north-of-the-border sightings of the Miramax chief. In fact, Miramax has had only the slimmest presence here, with only one major film, “Dear Frankie,” being shown in the festival. Nor has Miramax been a player in any of the major film sales so far. When Harvey asked for a New York screening of one especially coveted film up for bid that would unspool in New York at the same time it first screened up here, the film’s sellers turned him down. Back in the cloistered showbiz circles of Hollywood, Harvey’s future is also under close scrutiny. The questions are always the same: Will Harvey stick it out at Miramax until Disney czar Michael Eisner, whose company has owned Miramax for the past decade, retires in 2006? Or if he leaves Miramax to start a new company, can Harvey possibly duplicate the success he’s had over the past decade without the cushion of Disney’s deep pockets and his brother Bob’s cash-generating Dimension film division? In an industry that loves drama, nobody has supplied more three-ring Sturm und Drang than the swaggering Miramax chieftain. A foul-mouthed bully who knows more about long-ago Hollywood cult figures like Ben Hecht and Frank Borzage than most film scholars, Harvey is an impossible tangle of contradictions. He’s made more great movies than most of today’s studio chiefs combined while making enemies left and right, as with producer Saul Zaentz, who after doing business with Harvey on “The English Patient” described him as “a pushcart peddler who puts his thumb on the scale when the old woman is buying meat.”

Eisner’s departure date does nothing to defuse the tension, as Harvey’s decision will be made in a matter of weeks. Harvey has loudly complained that Eisner’s micromanagement has shut him out of all sorts of slam-dunk triumphs, including bankrolling “The Lord of the Rings” and investing in “The Producers,” which Harvey then did with his own money, making a small fortune off the Broadway smash. For his part, Eisner has been equally infuriated by Harvey’s lavish spending, pit bull competitiveness (Miramax is notorious for putting out its movies on Disney film release dates) and refusal to respect Eisner’s authority, whether by starting Talk magazine (which folded after losing pots of money) without telling Eisner or making “Fahrenheit 9/11” against Eisner’s wishes.

On the other hand, Disney acquired Miramax in 1993 for roughly $80 million, which could be one of the great steals of recent film history.

In recent weeks, the two sides have been having intense divorce talks that would allow Harvey to go off in quest of more Oscars with an independently financed company while brother Bob stays in the Disney fold running Dimension, which has generated the kind of teen-oriented franchise hits (“Scary Movie” and “Spy Kids”) that Eisner likes to see on the Disney balance sheet. If negotiations are successful, Harvey’s films still would be distributed through Miramax, allowing Harvey to stay in business with Bob, who would presumably look out for his brother’s interests.

When I spoke to Harvey last week, he was playing it close to the vest, wary about making any on-the-record pronouncements about the negotiations. But it was clear he holds out hope of hammering out a deal that would allow him to stay at Miramax. As hard as it is to believe with a guy who has been known to conclude an argument by flicking a lighted cigarette at his adversary, sentiment plays a part: Harvey started Miramax from scratch, naming it after his parents. His mother, Miriam, is still alive, and clearly retains a formidable hold on his psyche. Harvey also could be betting that Eisner won’t be at the Disney helm through 2006. Harvey’s allies say his optimism is also rooted in a belief that as Disney’s Sept. 30 fiscal year milepost approaches, Harvey is back in the driver’s seat.

Even though Miramax has let go of a sizable chunk of its staff and has been off the radar this summer, its 12-month track record has been solid, with two “Kill Bill” Quentin Tarantino hits and a surprise success with the martial-arts drama “Hero.” Disney’s film unit, on the other hand, has been six feet under, deluged with a string of costly flops including “The Alamo” and “King Arthur.” To add insult to injury, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which Eisner refused to distribute, has out-grossed every Disney release this year, even “The Village,” its biggest hit.

Odds are that Harvey and Disney will go their separate ways. But I would argue that Harvey isn’t jumping -- he’s being pushed. From Eisner’s point of view, despite Miramax’s wealth of Oscar glory (something that has forever eluded Disney), the real issue, as always, comes down to money. When Disney bought Miramax a decade ago, the company was in the low-budget indie film business, so when it hit pay dirt with a film like “Pulp Fiction,” the returns were enormous. But as Harvey’s ambitions have swelled, so have his films’ budgets, leaving him with decreasing margins. It’s far more difficult to make money with $80-million-plus art films (“Cold Mountain” or “Gangs of New York”) than with $35-million art films such as “The English Patient” or “Chocolat.”

In essence, Eisner wants Bob, but not Harvey. Eisner’s ideal arrangement is to keep Harvey at arm’s length, allowing him to pursue his grand schemes while spending someone else’s money. The Disney czar could retain Dimension and the valuable Miramax library while collecting distribution fees for the six-or-so movies Harvey would make each year with his new company.

For almost anyone in today’s financially cautious media environment, raising the $600 million to $800 million to launch a serious film company would be a Herculean challenge. But Harvey is no ordinary entrepreneur. From Bob Yari to Mark Cuban to Steve Bing, Hollywood has been a honey pot for billionaires eager to soak up some of the industry’s glamour. When Harvey makes his pitch, selling the frisson of being at Vanity Fair’s Oscar party, rubbing shoulders with Quentin and Marty and Leonardo, people’s wallets seem to levitate out of their pockets.

One of Harvey’s key investors would likely be Cablevision chief James Dolan, an old pal whose family owns the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden, as well as the Independent Film Channel and American Movie Classics, which would no doubt be a nice fit with Harvey’s dream of extending his empire into cable TV and the Internet. Harvey has been softening Dolan up for some time, teaming with him to produce the star-studded 2002 Concert for New York as well as the abortive effort to make New York the co-host of the 2003 Academy Awards. Harvey also cut Dolan in on “Fahrenheit 9/11,” enlisting IFC Films as a co-distributor.

Harvey will get his money. But will he be a success out on his own? A decade ago, Miramax had the art-house world basically to itself. But today there is more competition from savvy, sober-minded specialty companies such as Fox Searchlight and Focus Films. In an era where his competitors are tethered to prudent business models, Harvey still operates by the model he’s used since he was a Buffalo concert promoter: Trust me.

Harvey’s admirers say he still has an eye for talent and a knack for marketing, as the uproar over “Fahrenheit” would attest. Later this year he’s releasing films from two of the hottest indie filmmakers in town, Gurinder Chadha’s “Bride and Prejudice” and Marc Forster’s “Finding Neverland.” The latter film, along with Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” should again make Miramax a dominant player in the Oscar race.

But detractors say you can’t live by Oscar alone. Making a half-dozen films a year, Harvey won’t have the luxury of picking up 30 movies and waiting till December to see which three have the highest Oscar hopes. He also won’t have the luxury of quietly burying dozens of films each year that aren’t marketable commodities. Miramax has never released “Prozac Nation,” which was filmed in 2000, and has pushed back its $60-million war drama “The Great Raid,” shot in 2002, to December 2005. Harvey is an inveterate risk taker, which works best when you keep costs to a minimum. It’s harder to be a high-wire artist when you’re backing filmmakers with notoriously costly artistic appetites.

Perhaps because I’m a movie lover, not a corporate executive, I see Harvey in a different light, especially in a year in which Disney ditched “Fahrenheit 9/11” and Warner Bros. Films refused to release an anti-Iraqi war documentary by David O. Russell, worried that the studio could be accused of political bias. You’d never catch Rupert Murdoch fretting over such niceties -- he created an entire news network devoted to a political point of view. Hollywood needs more people with enough backbone to take the heat and stand up for free expression. At a time when most studios are creative mortuaries, you have to root for a guy whose entire business model seems to revolve around the idea that you should always shoot for the moon.