Weinstein Co

Many Sundance Film Festival movies left this year's gathering without a distributor, but indie film pioneer Harvey Weinstein is alleging that one of the festival's most acclaimed movies -- "Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire" -- actually was sold twice. In three lawsuits filed Wednesday in New York against the film's sales agent, Cinetic Media, Lionsgate Films and the film's producers, Weinstein Co.

THE "KILLSHOT" collaboration certainly looked intriguing on paper: John Madden, the director of best picture winner "Shakespeare in Love," adapting a colorful crime novel by Elmore Leonard, the author of "Get Shorty" and "Out of Sight," with Quentin Tarantino serving as executive producer. Add screenwriter Hossein Amini ("The Wings of the Dove") and uncredited revisions by Oscar winners Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, and what does "Killshot" add up to? The way the Weinstein Co.

Weinstein Co., the film company started by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, and Hilco Consumer Capital agreed to buy fashion house Halston Co. for an undisclosed amount and plan to bring in new management to run the business. Tamara Mellon, founder and president of Jimmy Choo Ltd., will join Halston's board. The buyers also plan to name a new chief executive, lead designer and creative team.

I miss Harvey Weinstein. Not the Harvey Weinstein you see today, the slimmed-down mogul who's acquired the Halston fashion brand, invested in a MySpace-style website for the rich and famous and bought the Ovation arts channel. Not the Harvey Weinstein who told the Hollywood Reporter last year that "we are focused on other areas outside of film."

His name is Hong Wang, a Chinese-born agricultural research scientist who works in a small town in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. He's also the unlikely key figure in a high-stakes Hollywood drama that is taking place far from the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown. Columbia Pictures and the Weinstein Co.

Underscoring the animation industry's globalization, a South Korean province has agreed to co-produce a slate of animated movies with Weinstein Co. and Los Angeles-based Gotham Group. Financial terms were not disclosed, but people familiar with the transaction said the province of Chungcheongnam-do agreed to co-finance with Weinstein Co. six to 10 computer-animated films costing about $40 million each.

Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the brothers who run the Weinstein Co. film studio, have raised $285 million to make movies with Asian themes, actors and directors. The fund will pay the full cost of making, marketing and distributing 21 theatrical releases and 10 direct-to-video films over the next six years, New York-based Weinstein Co. said Monday. Weinstein Co. will have control over development, marketing and distribution. The films will be made in Asia or will spotlight Asian themes or talent.

Weinstein Co., the film company started by Harvey and Bob Weinstein in October, raised $500 million through a debt sale, helping it reach a goal to secure more than $1.19 billion in financing. The new funds add to the $690 million the Weinstein brothers raised from an equity sale and partnerships last year.

Film producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein disclosed a major stage deal under their new firm, Weinstein Co., the first production of which will be "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The deal was included in a larger acquisition that also included film rights to Wang Du Lu's "Crane -- Iron Pentalogy," the series of novels from which "Crouching Tiger" was adapted into a hit 2000 film directed by Ang Lee.