Posted on 10/02/2009 9:50:39 PM PDT by Steelfish
Disney To Slash Miramax Films Staff To 20, Reduce Releases To 3 A Year
By Claudia Eller October 3, 2009
Walt Disney Co., looking to rein in costs at its Hollywood studio as it focuses on mainstream movies, is slashing staff by 70% at its Miramax Films specialty label and is substantially reducing the number of pictures it releases.
The retrenchment, which has been foreshadowed in Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger's strategy to emphasize family and "branded" films, comes quickly on the heels of the recent ouster of former Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook. The former movie chief left abruptly last month under pressure from Iger, who had been unhappy with the studio's direction and performance.
Under the plan disclosed after Disney's board meeting Friday, Miramax is being forced to eliminate 50 of the division's 70 jobs and cut in half the number of films it releases to just three a year. The label's marketing, distribution and administrative functions, which had operated independently, will be folded into the parent studio in Burbank. The move becomes effective in January.
Daniel Battsek, president of Miramax, will continue to oversee the label, but with a drastically reduced staff: The New York-based company, which at its peak four years ago had more than 500 employees and was once the premier distributor of independent films, will now have about 20.
"This restructuring maximizes operating efficiencies and provides significant cost savings while allowing Miramax to focus on its greatest strength: the creation of high-quality entertainment," Walt Disney Studios President Alan Bergman said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
This guy sounds right out of Dilbert. He could be any executive from any company selling anything. I hate corporate executives. The exception to that rule is when they also happen to be the founder of the company. Founders are always at least interesting and genuine. The rest are just BS suits.
You hit the nail on the head there!
Couldn’t agree more.. it’s just a canned “bla bla bla” way of saying “I fired your asses, and got a bonus for it! suckers”
"That's NOT RIGHT," the chorus shills, "you can't attract or retain qualified candidates that way! And the cuts are an economic necessity, due to the external environment!"
Ah, right. The executives were SUPPOSED to have EARNED that large salary and the perks by being "proactive" and "visionary" -- which by definition should have included foreseeing the risks and positioning the company to rise above them.
You know, like they're always telling fired employees to do in management-suck-up propaganda like "Who Moved My Cheese".
And if you're going to allow the external environment to act as a factor in pay -- how about LOWERING the pay when times are good, since it doesn't take a genius to make money when the economy is booming...
Cheers!
Family films have always made more money, bucket loads, from what I’ve read.
Yup. Total boilerplate, probably cut and pasted by his admin.
Bet 100% of these people voted Obama. :)
Yes- I’d love to see a 100% reduction in staff.
How is that 100% massive support for Obama and the insane democrat party working out for you Hollywood guys?
Tears by me out the heart.
Miramax put out one good film a year and 6 pieces of manure of the most gutter dwelling moral decay it could muster.
In their favor they were good to put out lots of period pieces that the wife and I fancy (time frame speaking). But sometimes we just had to cut their movies off and send it back unviewed because it was just &%#*~(see first paragraph for description)
That is because our country is a center-RIGHT one and not the nirvana of the loony left. No one in his or her right mind would take their children to a remake of Myra Breckinridge or something else this studio would like to rub our noses in. Mainstream America flocks to family films just as the WWII generation flocked to films to get their minds OFF what was happening at the time.
And generally enthused about what they make/do. Matthias Baldwin and Samuel Colt may have been characters, but they were devoted to the product as well as the profits. Both men had their Vauclains and Roots that continued to give a damn once the founders slipped their mortal coils, and the firms remained in good hands. At some point, the finance and/or legal people who care little for the product itself take over or are relied on too heavily, and the company either dies or morphs into something that I suspect the original proprietors would not find lovable (whether their descendants still benefitted or not).
I still recall the first time I heard an executive say, "I don't have to know what the company makes, because I know how to run people." He eventually managed to pick up a bit about the former, but not in time to conceal the fact that his assessment of the latter was somewhat overstated. He and his ilk killed that particular golden goose, and they went off to other pastures that still had enough green to attract overgrazers.
Mr. niteowl77
Sorry Hollywood - our movie budget now goes to preparing our household for “the World Obama Made”.
Actually this is a smart move on their part.
Anyone who has a firing synapse can see that Hollywood is dying. When times were fat for them the gushers of money covered up alot of bad decision making. Now the money is drying up on all fronts and they are discovering that they are indeed a business and the goal of business is to make money.
Disney knows that there still is an audience out there for movies and in order to make money they need to get us “bitter Klingons” to go see them. I think it is beginning to sink into their heads that they will not make money by insulting and berating half of their potential audience.
time for a cash for cartoons bailout?
But sometimes we just had to cut their movies off and send it back unviewed because it was just &%#*~(see first paragraph for description)
Well there's a reason it's called Hollyweird, so I'm happy to see that not everybody here is deeply saddened by the cutbacks at Miramax.
Sheeeeesh.... Disney hasn't made a good family-oriented film since Walt passed away...
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