This is why we need more NYC sudios! [Archive]

billyblancoNYC

February 10th, 2003, 09:24 AM

Sorry... I forgot Crains was subscription...

When the Oscar nominations are announced Tuesday, Miramax Films is likely to be the big winner. Many predict it will set an all-time record for nominations with films like Chicago and Gangs of New York, putting behind it a year of disappointing box office results and bad press.

But Miramax won't be the only New York-based company in the spotlight. The city's film industry-made up of smaller studios and independent distributors-has dominated the pre-Oscar honors this year and is expected to take home the bulk of the Academy Awards, too.

"It's surprising to see so few of the big studio movies in the awards corner," says Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, which won a Golden Globe for best foreign film with Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her. "Movies like Forrest Gump or Dances With Wolves used to be made by studios, but they don't seem to be making movies of that quality anymore."

Of the 10 top movies of the year chosen by the National Board of Review, only one, Columbia's Adaptation, came solely from a Hollywood studio. Four of the five nominations from the Directors Guild of America-which usually presage the Best Director Oscar-were for films from New York companies. The fifth nomination, The Hours, is a co-production of Hollywood-based Paramount Pictures and Miramax. The Golden Globes, known for favoring Hollywood, gave the bulk of its awards this year to Miramax and Manhattan-based New Line Cinema.

Even so, filmmaking is a cyclical business, executives say, and all the glory may go to Hollywood next year. In 1996, only one studio movie, Jerry Maguire, was nominated for best picture at the Oscars. But just a year later, Hollywood was vindicated with sweeping wins by Paramount's Titanic.

"Hollywood is still considered the center of the film business," says Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax. "What's happened this year is certainly a tribute to the talent that does exist here, but the fact that all these movies happened at once is coincidental."

Lack of quality from L.A.

Others in the film industry say more than good fortune is at work. Hollywood has become too focused on mass entertainment and quick profits to turn out quality films. While Hollywood was busy making risk-free sequels and crowd pleasers, New York film companies went out on a limb, buying and producing some of the most interesting movies in years.

Many of the winners this year represented gambles. Miramax spent more than $40 million to finance Chicago, a risky move considering that musicals on the big screen often flop. Now, industry analysts predict it will end up grossing more than $100 million at the box office and take home more than a few Oscars.

New Line's $300 million Lord of the Rings trilogy was the biggest bet in movie history. So far, the second Rings film has grossed more than $315 million in North America alone. About Schmidt, New Line's award-winning Jack Nicholson film, was taken out of development at Sony because it wasn't considered a sure box office success.

Hollywood studios used to set aside part of their budgets to take a chance on the type of highbrow films that tend to win awards but don't always attract mass audiences. Those days are over.

"Making qualitative films, especially dramas, is very risky in today's environment," says Amir Malin, chief executive of Artisan Entertainment, a Manhattan-based distributor. "You're going to see much more of an orientation at the studios to making commercially viable films that are safer bets."

Changes in New York's film industry also may make the local companies more competitive at Oscar time for many years to come. The two biggest New York studios, Miramax and New Line, are respectively owned by Disney and AOL Time Warner, conglomerates that provide virtually unlimited financial support. The New York subsidiaries' financial demands are a small fraction of the major studios' needs.

New York outposts

Other Hollywood studios are following that model as well. In the past two years, both MGM and Universal Studios have set up new independent distribution arms, headed by New York film veterans.

Bingham Ray was tapped to restart United Artists, MGM's distribution company for foreign and art house films. Universal last year acquired New York independent company Good Machine and folded it into its own specialty film division to create Focus Features, headed by Good Machine President James Schamus.

These independent distributors are now attached to deep-pocketed corporate parents and no longer have to spend their energy putting together financing deals.

Focus bought The Pianist at the Cannes Film Festival a week after the distributor was founded. The Roman Polanski film, based on the true story of a classical pianist who survives the Holocaust, has been chosen the best film of 2002 by the National Society of Film Critics, only one of the film's many honors.

The smaller film companies insist on staying in New York, long the center of the indie film world, to be close to the up-and-coming talent in the local literary and theater industries, and the city's top film schools.

"Los Angeles can be a very hermetic place," says Robert Shaye, co-chairman of New Line, which has its headquarters in New York, though Mr. Shaye works in Los Angeles. "The ability to really be a part of the cultural nutrition that comes out of the East Coast has been a very salutary benefit."

The success this year for Miramax is especially sweet. Just a few months ago, Miramax co-chair Harvey Weinstein was the subject of a New Yorker profile, predicting his temper would soon lead to his downfall in Hollywood.

"People were talking about the demise of Miramax," says Artisan's Mr. Malin. "But (tomorrow) everyone there will be smiling."