At Creative Artists Agency's recent corporate retreat in Ojai, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger was invited to expound on the future of the entertainment business and field questions about the media giant.
He talked about Disney's decision to make fewer movies. He talked about the acquisition of Pixar Animation, producer of the soon-to-be-released "Up." He talked about the studio's new deal to distribute films from director Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG.
Iger wasn't asked about one segment of Disney's business -- Miramax Films, the specialty label that no longer appears to fit into the company's strategy to focus on family and big-event pictures.
Specialty divisions, which make offbeat movies aimed at sophisticated adult audiences and critics, do not typically generate the big returns that studios demand from their blockbuster-oriented priorities. That's more important than ever as Hollywood looks to make fewer but more reliable bets with broad comedies and easily marketable sequels and prequels. Films such as "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and "Star Trek" are driving ticket sales and theater attendance to record levels this year.
In the wake of Disney's rival media companies retrenching from their smaller film labels, many in the independent movie business fear that a similar fate awaits Miramax, one of only three such operations still in existence. Time Warner Inc. shut down two labels -- Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse -- while Viacom Inc. consolidated its Paramount Vantage unit into Paramount Pictures, and News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox closed Fox Atomic.
"People are as interested in seeing our movies as they are studio movies," said John Sloss, a sales agent who sold distribution rights for such independent hits as "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Napoleon Dynamite." But for the corporate parents under pressure from stockholders "there's not enough upside from these divisions, so they're an easy target," he said.
Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook says the company doesn't have Miramax in its cross hairs.
"There is no for-sale sign on Miramax," Cook said. "It's a great place to find new talent and nurture interesting projects. And when you do hit it, it can be extraordinarily profitable and gives an added dimension with not a giant amount of overhead."
