By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Rebranding The Miramax Sale
It’s one of those great moments… a reason why Hollywood can be happy that two aggressive self-promoters, trying to wrest control of the old territory of The Trades from each other, are taking advice from opposite teams on the same story. It creates some beautiful transparency.
On one side is Sharon Waxman, who is on the “Disney is selling Miramax to known thief Ron Bergstein” tack. Her EXCLUSIVE from Monday is headlined, “Bergstein Nears Miramax Purchase from Disney” and offers, “Tutor and two other unidentified equity partners.”
Cut to today and Nikki Finke’s EXCLUSIVE, “Former Disney CFO Richard Nanula Now Leading Ron Tutor’s Miramax Negotiations; “Bullet Train” Deal Could Close In A Week; Disney May Get Its $700M Asking Price”
And a previously unidentified equity partner comes out of the closet… Colony Capital.
But the lede tells you exactly why this story was fed to Nikki: “Forget the bizarre involvement of David Bergstein, and Morgan Creek’s James Robinson, and even Rob lowe.”
Later she adds, “he was being advised by two of Hollywood’s most controversial and disliked figures: not just David Bergstein but also his good friend, Morgan Creek’s James Robinson. I understand that both men are being pushed aside now.”
And there you can find the real nugget in all this… Disney doesn’t want to be saddled with Bergstein as The Buyer. He has real union problems from which Disney wants to stay far, far away. And the idea they are selling a $700 million library to a guy who owes a lot of people a lot of money – and even a lot of smaller sums of five-figures or less – is embarrassing.
Now, they get to sell to Richard Nanula and Colony Capital and yeah, Ron Tutor. Forget about those other guys… sideshow… not our problem.
It will be fascinating to see if Sharon and her source fires back with more BERGSTEIN screams.
Meanwhile, the effort to rebrand what has long been called “Bergstein trying to buy Miramax” as “former insider Richard Nanula trying to buy Miramax for a consortium of serious players who feel just as happy shoving Bergstein out” tells you that the deal is likely all but closed… except for winning the hearts and minds.
The very first order of business the new owner of Miramax should undertake (and the ultimate “fuck you” to Harvey) is to immediately let the filmmakers of Weinstein-butchered films into the vaults to release Directors’ Cuts, starting with “Gangs of New York.” That would be AWESOME.
That last paragraph is unreadable.
Jeff, yeah, that last paragraph is just a bit much. Whose Bergstein? Whose Richard Nanula? Which one is an insider? IT’S ALL JUST TOO MUCH!
A guess:
Meanwhile, the effort to rebrand what has long been called “Bergstein trying to buy Miramax” as “former insider, Colony Capital principle Richard Nanula ,trying to buy Miramax for a consortium of serious players who feel just as happy Bergstein got shoved out” tells you that the deal is likely all but closed… except for winning the hearts and minds.
Yes, some quotation marks or caps would be well advised.
Sadly, J-Mc can’t understand anything I write and rarely does more than whine about it. I can’t quite figure out why he keeps reading the blog.
He hates us and the hate helps him get through the day. Oh yeah, when there’s nothing going on the blog for most of a day. Open a BYOB to keep the conversation a flowin!
DP, (a) you’re not as good of a writer as you think you are, and (b) you are getting all that is called for and nothing more.