That’s the question that Claudia Eller raises in today’s Los Angeles Times, pointing to the fact that the Disney–owned unit has seen its share of the “specialty label†box office slip from 20.2 to 12.1 percent in the last two years. She also notes that the studio’s box-office revenues dropped nearly 50 percent from its 2007 levels last year, despite the fact that they released the same number of films (eight) in both years. More recently, with the film Adventureland, the studio was not able to turn the significant levels of online buzz the film received into actual ticket sales, and the project only ended up grossing some $16 million at the box office. It’s been nearly four years since Bob and Harvey Weinstein fled the company that they both founded and molded into an international powerhouse, and in that time, the only film that Miramax has released that’s made anything resembling a widespread impact on American audiences is No Country for Old Men (and even then, the profit was shared with Paramount Vantage). While we are fairly certain that the percentage of people who go to see films based upon a studio’s brand name is very small (the exceptions obviously being Disney and Pixar), if we were Miramax president Daniel Battsek, we would definitely spend a few minutes this week making sure our résumé was up to date.
Can Miramax Survive? [LAT]