Miramax Films

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.

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.

Daniel Battsek, head of Walt Disney Co.'s specialty label Miramax Films, has been forced out after a series of flops failed to turn around the struggling company, whose brighter moments included such prestige movies as "No Country for Old Men," "The Queen" and "Doubt." Battsek's departure comes on the heels of Disney's move this month to slash 70% of Miramax's staff, to 20 people, and drastically cut the number of movies it releases to only three annually. Miramax's marketing and distribution were also consolidated into the larger Walt Disney Studios.

Miramax Enters Pact With Computer Firm: Miramax Films announced an alliance with The Other 90% Technologies Inc., a small San Francisco-area company trying to develop ways to control computers with body sensors rather than keyboards. The two companies aim to create products that can change the plot of a movie according to what the viewer is thinking. The Other 90% plans to sell a $150 accessory for personal computers this summer that can run certain functions when a person thinks about them.

Exuberant and pitiless, profane yet eloquent, flush with the ability to create laughter out of unspeakable situations, "Trainspotting" is a drop-dead look at a dead-end lifestyle that has all the strength of its considerable contradictions.

It was all in the family at the Miramax Oscar bash Monday night--a hot ticket that got hotter when Mira (as in Sorvino) brought the celebration to a max with her glamorous arrival at Spago in West Hollywood, where more than 700 guests downed 45 cases of Moet champagne and partied until 4:30 a.m.

Miramax Films hopes it has an Oscar contender in "The Postman (Il Postino)," and in recent weeks has doubled the movie's $1.5-million marketing budget to further the cause. But don't look for the $4-million film--the story of a simple Italian postman whose life is transformed by the magic of poetry--among this year's best foreign-language film nominees. "Postman" is ineligible because it was not submitted in that category in 1994, the year it opened in Italy.

Jon Favreau seems at home in a peach-colored Naugahyde booth at the Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop. Billie Holiday sings "Night and Day" in the background. It's just down Franklin Avenue from where, until recently, the actor-writer lived in a $470-per-month apartment. He'd come here often for a nice, leisurely, 1-in-the-afternoon breakfast, as underemployed actors are supposed to do. Then go home, look for work, pick up an unemployment check, hope a residual payment would arrive.