Lotsa luck to Ron Tutor and his fellow investors — who may or may not include Ron Bergstein, James Robinson of Morgan Creek, Gulf Capitol of Dubai and, uh, Rob Lowe — who have purchased Miramax from Disney for a figure reported to be around $660 million, or about $100 million more than founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein were willing to let the backers of their failed bid to take the studio back pay.
This leaves Filmyard Holdings LLC, as the new owners are called, in partnership with the Weinsteins, who reportedly sequel and/or other rights to some 17 titles in the Miramax library and are not at all happy about failing to recapture control of the entity they named after their parents. According to early reports, Filmyard will rely on Disney to release the handful of Miramax titles on the shelf, as well as to continue distributing some 700 library titles for now.
Not mentioned is the fate of Miramax’s Dimension label, which Disney has been leasing to the Weinsteins for genre fare in which Disney has been a silent investor.
Last night’s press release mentions Miramax award-winners like “Shakespeare in Love” (co-owned, incidentally, by Universal) and “Chicago,” but that library is also chock-full of Weinstein mistakes like Roberto Begnini’s “Pinnochio,” Billy Bob Thornton’s “Daddy and Me,” a brace of Freddie Prinze Jr. vehicles and direct-to-DVD movies like the sequels to “Dracula 2000.”

