The SoHo headquarters of Miramax, with its high ceilings, hardwood floors and a 15th-floor view of Midtown, is lovely, if unassuming. A satellite office of the previous, much larger Miramax, the place doesn’t exactly shout Hollywood, but rather whispers of the back-office functions it used to house.
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- The Carpetbagger Blog
Daniel Battsek, who in the summer of 2005 took over Miramax from Harvey and Bob Weinstein.
The atmosphere was remarkably different at the old headquarters of Miramax, further downtown in TriBeCa during the earlier regime. With a lobby ionized by the presence of A-list talent — might be Gwyneth or Nicole — the kinetic energy of the Weinstein brothers gave the space a kind of crackle, with people scurrying about, driven by fear or possibility.
Miramax may be a smaller and calmer organization under Daniel Battsek, who in the summer of 2005 took over the company that Harvey and Bob Weinstein named after their parents and built with their bare hands — and sometimes with their bare knuckles. But the studio has nonetheless remained in the thick of the awards race.
Mr. Battsek, 49, a soft-spoken Briton whose first significant industry job came in the international division of Miramax, makes little effort to distance himself from the Weinstein filmmaking legacy. And why would he? Under the Weinsteins, Miramax films were in the running for best picture 11 years in a row beginning in 1992, had 249 nominations over all and won 60 Academy Awards, including 3 for best picture. It is an unrivaled run through the Oscars, but Mr. Battsek is doing a fine job of keeping up. In 2005, his first year running the company, “Tsotsi” won best foreign film. Last year “The Queen” garnered six nominations (including best picture) and an Oscar for Helen Mirren in the best actress category, while Peter O’Toole was nominated in the best actor category for “Venus.”
And this year looks promising as well. Yesterday the National Board of Review named the studio’s “No Country for Old Men” best picture, and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” was named best foreign film. Amy Ryan received best supporting actress for her role as a conflicted mother in “Gone Baby Gone,” and Ben Affleck was awarded best directorial debut for that film.
“The brand itself is in great shape,” Mr. Battsek said in late November, sitting in a modest office that has no desk, much less a throne. “Harvey and Bob made it that way, and I owe them a debt.”
(The Weinsteins returned the compliment, saying through a spokesman, “We’re proud of the legacy we created at Miramax and think Daniel has done a terrific job.”)
At the beginning of a Miramax film, the familiar New York skyline logo appears, unchanged from the Weinstein years. But the company behind that logo has undergone some changes.
Miramax once had more than 400 employees and released dozens of films a year, both art-house fare like “Sex, Lies and Videotape” and big-budget movies like “Cold Mountain” and “Gangs of New York.” Now this boutique studio employs fewer than 100 people and releases 8 to 10 films a year, with budgets under $20 million and many far below that. The company’s annual budget is reported to be approximately $300 million; under the Weinsteins, Miramax’s budget was about $700 million a year. “There is a discipline that comes from working with limited funds,” Mr. Battsek said. “We have a limited number of slots, we make careful choices, and I’m responsible for keeping a lid on things.”
Richard W. Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, said of Mr. Battsek, “None of this is a surprise to us. We have known Daniel for a long time, and we knew that he possessed the taste, intellect and creative energy to be a success in this job.”
Miramax no longer has a contentious relationship with its owner, the Walt Disney Company, one that eventually resulted in the Weinsteins leaving in 2005.
Under Mr. Battsek, Miramax has displayed a predilection for literary adaptations, often coupled with big names but without the corresponding budgets. Among Miramax’s movies next year are “Blindness,” based on José Saramago’s novel; “Doubt,” John Patrick Shanley’s screen version of his play, which stars Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams; and “Brideshead Revisited,” with Emma Thompson.
Mr. Battsek’s demeanor has helped him cross the ocean without much turbulence. “He is not caught up in acting like a big shot, and because of that he made the transition to the American market look easy and it’s not,” said Bingham Ray, a longtime indie film executive who oversees domestic marketing and distribution for Sidney Kimmel Entertainment.
Mr. Battsek would be happy to run the company without looking over a director’s shoulder. “I’m not a happy person on a movie set,” he said. “I’m very comfortable with a wide variety of people, but I’m not driven by a desire to have X number of famous people as friends. I want strong relationships with the people we are doing business with, but that’s about as far as it goes.”
But this being the movie business, sometimes the limelight finds you. At the recent Gotham awards, Jonathan Sehring, president of IFC Entertainment and one of the evening’s honorees, felt compelled to scold him, saying that while Miramax was making good films, it should not be called “independent” because it is financed by Disney.
“It was a mixed blessing, because I think that I have made choices that are good for film and ones that are made in the spirit of independence,” Mr. Battsek said.
Mr. Sehring’s pointed comment does, however, illustrate that so-called specialty films have become a more crowded affair with sharper elbows, especially at this time of year. All kinds of new money, from private equity funds and personal investors, have been flowing into the so-called independent space, and even though the Weinsteins have broader multimedia ambitions, it is not as if they have left the movie field. This year the Weinstein Company’s Oscar hopefuls include “I’m Not There,” and “The Great Debaters.” Such competition makes landing a movie with award potential all the more complicated. But Scott Rudin, the producer who put together “No Country for Old Men” said Mr. Battsek understood the task at hand as well as anyone.
“You are talking about the kind of films that are the flagship examples of quality in moviemaking,” Mr. Rudin said. “And if you can’t do the best for those films, which includes getting a fair look from the academy, you are missing a huge part of the mandate. No one is making an enormous amount of money, so the award recognition is very much a part of it. Daniel has taken a tough, challenging movie and made the most of it.”
“No Country for Old Men,” which has brought in more than $23 million through Dec. 3, is shaping up to be the Coen brothers’ best box-office performer. That fact is not lost on them.
“He knew what he was dealing with, and he didn’t try and plug this movie into some kind of formula like so many movie executives would,” said Ethan Coen. “In this business everybody pretends to listen to you and then give you lip service in return. With Daniel you know that your ideas have been considered.”
Mr. Battsek said he was simply playing the winning cards dealt to him.
“Scott Rudin is the one who put the Coens together with Cormac McCarthy’s book,” he said. “It was a match that was made in heaven already. I just had to make sure that it was not seen as just an art-house movie.”