By Ryan Nakashima, Business Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --The new chief executive of Miramax Films said Thursday that he’ll focus primarily on boosting sales of the 700-movie library of Oscar winners and other classics while looking for partners to make new films.
Mike Lang, a 45-year-old former strategy executive at News Corp.’s Fox, started this week as head of the edgy studio, which investment group Filmyard Holdings bought from The Walt Disney Co. for $663 million last week.
Miramax was founded in 1979 by Harvey and Bob Weinstein and named after their parents Miriam and Max. The studio is behind a string of Oscar winners including “Shakespeare in Love” (1998), “Chicago” (2002) and “No Country for Old Men” (2007). Disney offloaded the niche label in favor making more family-oriented franchises and its Pixar and Marvel brands.
Among Lang’s top priorities are partnering with distributors to sell DVDs and offer Miramax movies, such as “The English Patient,” online. He’s also looking to license the films to TV channels at home and abroad.
“The TV market around the world is growing. They’re all going to need movies for their channels,” he said in an interview.
Among his first priorities: releasing “Pulp Fiction” on Blu-ray and finding a partner to distribute three films that have not yet been released theatrically: “The Debt,” “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” and “Last Night.”
Filmyard Holdings is majority owned by Colony Capital, its CEO Tom Barrack, and passive investor Qatar Holding LLC, an arm of the Middle Eastern country’s government. Ron Tutor, the chief executive of construction company Tutor-Saliba Corp., is also an investor.
Their purchase of the studio, which Disney bought in 1993 for $80 million, included taking on $408 million in debt in two batches, which Moody’s Investors Service on Wednesday rated as below investment grade at “Ba2” and “B2.” Accounting for fees and cash on the books, the investors’ equity portion came to $245 million.
Filmyard expects existing deals should result in cash flow above $150 million for the first year, and it expects to be able to pay back its debt before maturity in six years. Moody’s said its rating reflects that the library will age and generate less revenue over time.
Lang said he expects to hire 50 to 75 people in the next couple years. Besides generating new sources of revenue for existing movies, he said he hopes to partner with others, including the Weinsteins, to develop sequels to franchises in its catalog. Miramax and the Weinsteins share rights on a number of series including “Scary Movie” and “Scream.”
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More