In todays Hollywood Reporter there is an article talking about Disney finally letting go of something they should never have bought. What was Miramax Films film library. I guess the feeling in 1993 at the Mouse House was to round out their film library not only with top notch animation but Academy Award winners and contenders? Since the Weinstein Brothers left to start The Weinstein Company in 2005 Disney has been struggling to figure out what to do with the once independent giant. After letting 70% of Miramax's workforce go in October Disney made it official last month closing the doors in the NY and LA offices. Now they're selling off the Miramax library trying to pay for their latest acquisition. Marvel Entertainment Inc. Can the Weinstein Brothers pull together the cash to buy back the films they worked so hard to create? We'll see? Enjoy.
Miramax offers due Friday
More than a dozen expected for Disney's shuttered division
By Carl DiOrio
More than a dozen nonbinding offers are expected Friday in an informal auction Disney is conducting for its recently shuttered Miramax.
Contrary to some reports, Disney's $700 million price tag on Miramax, which comes with a 700-film library, might not prove a problem. But that will take a while to sort out, as first-round bidding is nonbinding and Disney has facilitated almost no due diligence by Miramax suitors.
One estimate put annual cash flow from the Miramax library at $150 million, meaning Disney would need to find a buyer willing to pay a multiple of four to five times cash flow. That's considered doable, though everything depends on bidders confirming the studio's cash flow claims when due diligence finally is allowed.
Disney is running the Miramax auction internally, with its finance execs fielding phone calls and holding occasional meetings with prospective suitors.
Minimajor Lionsgate is among those kicking tires on Miramax, and several majors also are expected to make expressions of interest. Summit Entertainment had been in the mix of suitors but pulled out at the eleventh hour prior to the bidding deadline.
Former Miramax co-toppers Harvey and Bob Weinstein also are interested in reclaiming rights to their once-mighty indie, which they founded in 1979 and named for their parents Miriam and Max Weinstein. But it's not clear how the recently cash-strapped brothers would fund a Miramax purchase.
Showing posts with label Recent News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recent News. Show all posts
Friday, February 19, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
A New Version Of "Metropolis!!!"
Ok, ok I realize that I'm cheating with posting a Hollywood Reporter article as my first post but I am JUICED about this news. (Besides, it won't be my last in posting other's articles in film news.) I find this type of thing fascinating. "Lost footage" and "Undiscovered copy found!!" etc, etc. Kids of theater owners who stumble onto a box of old film cans in their parents closets or basement. Rumors of lost footage and films and the people who are driven to find these bits of treasure. I am looking forward to this being released here in the states. I would love to see this baby on the big screen!!
New version of 'Metropolis' screening at Berlin
By Scott Roxborough
It started with a rumor.
Fernando Martin Pena, director of the film department at Argentina's Museum of Latin American Art, was talking to the manager of a cinema club when the manager mentioned a screening of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" he had attended years ago.
Pena normally wouldn't have paid it much mind: "Metropolis" is a silent film classic and, around the world, standard movie club fare. But the manager complained about how long the screening was -- 2 1/2 hours.
Which was strange because the longest version of "Metropolis" then in existence came in at slightly more than two hours. Sure, Lang's original cut was longer, but after "Metropolis" flopped at its 1927 premiere in Berlin, it got chopped. Before its U.S. release, Paramount butchered the film, tossing out characters and scenes, simplifying the plot and bringing the runtime down by about 25 minutes. After an initial five-month run in Berlin, German studio UFA did the same. The missing scenes were lost forever. Unless ...
It was a crazy thought. The original version of "Metropolis" is the holy grail of director's cuts. Everyone knew no copy existed. The idea that a copy of was lying in the musty back rooms of the Museo del Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires was absurd.
Pena spent 15 years chasing the rumor. He traced things back to Adolfo Z. Wilson, former head of Argentine film distributor Terra. In 1928, Wilson had ordered a copy of the original version of "Metropolis" to be sent to Buenos Aires. The copy was passed to a film critic, Manuel Pena Rodriguez, who kept it as part of his private collection before selling the reels to Argentina's National Art Fund in the 1960s. In 1992, a copy of these reels was left to the Museo del Cine.
That's where Pena ran into a wall. The Museo del Cine refused to give him access to its archives. It wasn't until 2008, when his ex-wife, Paula Felix-Didier, became the museum's curator, that Pena finally got to look.
In July of that year, Felix-Didier came to Berlin with a DVD copy and screened it for a select group in Berlin.
"The room got very quiet," says Martin Koerber, head of film archives at Berlin's Deutsche Kinematek film museum. "We were all waiting to see if it was really true."
Koerber knew what to expect: He had headed the team that restored "Metropolis" in 2001.
" 'Metropolis' was the most expensive German film of its time and it is incredibly well-documented," he says. "We have the original script and we have the huge number of secondary sources, including the original musical score by (composer) Gottfried Huppertz."
Huppertz's score was key because it provided both a timeline and blueprint for the reconstruction. Scores for silent films of that era included annotations for the conductor -- notes of what was on the screen so the conductor could follow the action and keep the music in sync. By following the notes, Koerber and conductor Frank Strobel put "Metropolis" back together again. Where they didn't have images, they left gaps, with title cards describing the action that, according to Thea von Harbou's script, had to be there.
"Now we had a complete copy, we could see if we'd got it right," Koerber says. "The DVD started and we watched. And it fit. It all fit. Whereas before, we had just descriptions, we now had real scenes."
Then the real work began.
The Murnau Foundation, which holds the rights to "Metropolis," reached a deal with Museo del Cine, secured financing from broadcasters ZDF and ARTE, and then set out to clean up the 80-year-old images.
"It was a mess; it was in really horrible condition," says Anke Wilkening of the Murnau Foundation, describing the Argentine copy of "Metropolis." "It was a 16mm copy of the original 32mm print, which itself had been screened repeatedly and was worn down. It wasn't a wetgate scan (a scan that applies perchloroethylene to film that helps to fill in scratches on the surface and wash away dust) but a dry copy, so all the original flaws were transferred to the dub. We had every flaw you can imagine. It was less a matter of restoration than damage control."
Film tech specialists Arri helped digitize the print. Specially designed software from Alpha & Omega, another German firm, removed the worst effects. The missing scenes were slotted into the 2001 restoration.
It isn't perfect. Wilkening notes Argentine censors cut out some material -- including a short nude scene -- meaning that a truly complete "Metropolis" remains tantalizingly out of reach. But whatever its minor flaws, this "Metropolis," which premieres in Berlin, will transform our image of a great cinematic classic.
"For the first time in 83 years," says Nina Gossler, who oversaw the restoration for ZDF, "we can see 'Metropolis' with new eyes."
New version of 'Metropolis' screening at Berlin
By Scott Roxborough
It started with a rumor.
Fernando Martin Pena, director of the film department at Argentina's Museum of Latin American Art, was talking to the manager of a cinema club when the manager mentioned a screening of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" he had attended years ago.
Pena normally wouldn't have paid it much mind: "Metropolis" is a silent film classic and, around the world, standard movie club fare. But the manager complained about how long the screening was -- 2 1/2 hours.
Which was strange because the longest version of "Metropolis" then in existence came in at slightly more than two hours. Sure, Lang's original cut was longer, but after "Metropolis" flopped at its 1927 premiere in Berlin, it got chopped. Before its U.S. release, Paramount butchered the film, tossing out characters and scenes, simplifying the plot and bringing the runtime down by about 25 minutes. After an initial five-month run in Berlin, German studio UFA did the same. The missing scenes were lost forever. Unless ...
It was a crazy thought. The original version of "Metropolis" is the holy grail of director's cuts. Everyone knew no copy existed. The idea that a copy of was lying in the musty back rooms of the Museo del Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires was absurd.
Pena spent 15 years chasing the rumor. He traced things back to Adolfo Z. Wilson, former head of Argentine film distributor Terra. In 1928, Wilson had ordered a copy of the original version of "Metropolis" to be sent to Buenos Aires. The copy was passed to a film critic, Manuel Pena Rodriguez, who kept it as part of his private collection before selling the reels to Argentina's National Art Fund in the 1960s. In 1992, a copy of these reels was left to the Museo del Cine.
That's where Pena ran into a wall. The Museo del Cine refused to give him access to its archives. It wasn't until 2008, when his ex-wife, Paula Felix-Didier, became the museum's curator, that Pena finally got to look.
In July of that year, Felix-Didier came to Berlin with a DVD copy and screened it for a select group in Berlin.
"The room got very quiet," says Martin Koerber, head of film archives at Berlin's Deutsche Kinematek film museum. "We were all waiting to see if it was really true."
Koerber knew what to expect: He had headed the team that restored "Metropolis" in 2001.
" 'Metropolis' was the most expensive German film of its time and it is incredibly well-documented," he says. "We have the original script and we have the huge number of secondary sources, including the original musical score by (composer) Gottfried Huppertz."
Huppertz's score was key because it provided both a timeline and blueprint for the reconstruction. Scores for silent films of that era included annotations for the conductor -- notes of what was on the screen so the conductor could follow the action and keep the music in sync. By following the notes, Koerber and conductor Frank Strobel put "Metropolis" back together again. Where they didn't have images, they left gaps, with title cards describing the action that, according to Thea von Harbou's script, had to be there.
"Now we had a complete copy, we could see if we'd got it right," Koerber says. "The DVD started and we watched. And it fit. It all fit. Whereas before, we had just descriptions, we now had real scenes."
Then the real work began.
The Murnau Foundation, which holds the rights to "Metropolis," reached a deal with Museo del Cine, secured financing from broadcasters ZDF and ARTE, and then set out to clean up the 80-year-old images.
"It was a mess; it was in really horrible condition," says Anke Wilkening of the Murnau Foundation, describing the Argentine copy of "Metropolis." "It was a 16mm copy of the original 32mm print, which itself had been screened repeatedly and was worn down. It wasn't a wetgate scan (a scan that applies perchloroethylene to film that helps to fill in scratches on the surface and wash away dust) but a dry copy, so all the original flaws were transferred to the dub. We had every flaw you can imagine. It was less a matter of restoration than damage control."
Film tech specialists Arri helped digitize the print. Specially designed software from Alpha & Omega, another German firm, removed the worst effects. The missing scenes were slotted into the 2001 restoration.
It isn't perfect. Wilkening notes Argentine censors cut out some material -- including a short nude scene -- meaning that a truly complete "Metropolis" remains tantalizingly out of reach. But whatever its minor flaws, this "Metropolis," which premieres in Berlin, will transform our image of a great cinematic classic.
"For the first time in 83 years," says Nina Gossler, who oversaw the restoration for ZDF, "we can see 'Metropolis' with new eyes."
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