This has been a long time coming. There was a short period of time that I was starting to thing that Miramax And Disney were going to avoid going their separate ways… until that whole mess when Disney hypocritically forced Miramax to back out of distributing Fahrenheit 9/11 9-11. At that point, you knew things were going to come to blows. They did, and now Harvey and Bob Weinstein are free of the nazi camp known as Disney.
The terms of the “divorce” seem amicable enough. The good folks over at Empire give us these details:
According to the terms of the agreement, Disney wins custody of the Miramax back catalogue and name, even during weekends and school holidays. But don’t cry for the Weinsteins, who keep their Dimension Films label (although not the back catalogue, which Disney keeps) and take about $140 million and a raft of new projects to their new company
The Weinsteins, when asked why things had gone wrong, cited missed opportunities (including Disney turning down The Lord of the Rings. Doh!) and the desire to get involved in a wider range of ventures. They said that giving up the Miramax name – which comes from their parents Miriam and Max – had been the hardest part of the deal, but both sides declared themselves very happy with the final settlement.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge Harvey and Bob Weinstein fan by any stretch of the imagination… but getting out from under the iron fist of Disney can’t be anything but positive for these guys. I wish them well.
On a related note… I hope Disney burns to the ground (unless they ditch their blasphemous Toy Story 3 project without Pixar). Otherwise, burn baby burn. Cheers!
