The Walt Disney Co. said Friday that it agreed to sell its Miramax Films to an investor group for about $660 million, ending a 17-year association with the studio and a six-month bidding process.
Miramax’s Oscar-laden film library has more than 700 titles, including prestigious films such as “My Left Foot” (1989), “Pulp Fiction” (1994) and “Good Will Hunting” (1997).
But Disney had been looking to sell Miramax amid a studio overhaul because it no longer resonated with its other family centric studio units such as Pixar and Marvel.
“Although we are very proud of Miramax’s many accomplishments, our current strategy for Walt Disney Studios is to focus on the development of great motion pictures under the Disney, Pixar and Marvel brands,” said Disney president and CEO Robert A. Iger said in a statement. “We are delighted that we have found a home for the Miramax brand and Miramax’s very highly regarded motion picture library.”
The entertainment company signed an agreement late Thursday with Filmyard Holding, an investor group led by construction magnate and Hollywood outsider Ronald Tutor. Other investors include Colony Capital LLC, a real estate investment group, and its CEO Tom Barrack.
Tutor and his partners put down a nonrefundable deposit of $40 million to Disney on Thursday. Disney said the deal could close as soon as Sept. 10.
Despite its past success with prize-winning films, Miramax also faces challenges.
Earlier this year, Disney stopped investing in its new projects, laying off all but a handful of staff beginning in January in a major round of cost-cutting and reorganization under its new studios chairman, Rich Ross. It was one of many niche labels shuttered or downsized in Hollywood recently, plagued by high costs and few commercial hits despite their occasional critical success.
The label was founded in 1979 by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who named it after their parents, Miriam and Max. It was sold to Disney for $80 million in 1993, and the brothers stayed on as managers.
But the duo left in 2005 to found The Weinstein Co. after years of troubled relations with Disney and a public spat over Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which Disney refused to distribute.
The Weinstein’s recent bid to buy Miramax with the financial backing of supermarket magnate Ron Burkle was halted after Burkle cut the offered price to about $565 million from $625 million.
Disney shares closed Thursday at $33.71.
Review: Director Alex Parkinson’s “Last Breath” Starring Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu
A routine deep sea diving mission in the North Sea goes terribly wrong when a young diver is stranded some 300 feet below the surface in the new film "Last Breath." His umbilical cable has severed. The support vessel above is aimlessly drifting away from the site through violent, stormy waters. And the diver has only ten minutes of oxygen in his backup tank.
As if that wasn't enough, it's also a true story.
If merely reading this is giving you heart palpitations already, you can only imagine the white-knuckle experience of watching this all play out on the big screen. It's 40ish minutes of pure suspense and anxiety as the story shuffles between the man at the bottom of the ocean, Chris Lemons (Finn Cole), his fellow saturation divers (Woody Harrelson as Duncan and Simu Liu as Dave) in the diving bell below the waters who are unable to help and the crew in the support vessel above (including Cliff Cutris and Mark Bonnar) scrambling to get their systems back online and operational as the clock rapidly runs out. Ten minutes has never felt so short โ and then it just gets worse as the clock starts counting up, showing Chris's time without oxygen.
At one point, Liu's character Dave, a no-nonsense, all-business diver says matter-of-factly at that it's a body recovery, not a rescue. Deep sea saturation diving is a dangerous business, described at the start of the film as the most dangerous job on earth. Chris tells his fiancรฉ, in a short introduction, that it's no more dangerous than going to space. She replies that it's funny that he thinks that is comforting.
The real incident happened in September 2012 โ Dave, Duncan and Chris were just one team of divers sent to the ocean floor off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland, to repair oil... Read More