Can Independents Remain Independent - Bob & Harvey Weinstein Beckon Us to Inquire

Let Bob and Harvey Weinstein's exodus from Disney and Miramax be a lesson to all independent filmmakers, entrepreneurs, free spirits and free thinkers to think twice before taking that big leap into a potentially deep dark whole of wordy pig latin contracts, shifting profits, and tight although shiny expensive leashes.

Rochester, NY (PRWEB) April 3, 2005 -- Let Bob and Harvey Weinstein's exodus from Disney and Miramax be a lesson to all independent filmmakers, entrepreneurs, free spirits and free thinkers to think twice before taking that big leap into a potentially deep dark whole of wordy contracts, shifting profits, and tight although shiny expensive leashes. Perhaps it's time for independent filmmakers to claim their independence.

It is truly amazing that the company Bob and Harvey Weinstein built with their own four pudgy hands, two mogul minds, and a company named after their mother Miriam, Miramax Films, would be abandoned to extricate themselves from a Disney contract. One can only imagine the pain these once indie prophets must have suffered when they sold their kingdom to a company with a dinosaur size rodent as their company logo and mascot.

Perhaps it all became too clear when Disney treated these wonder boys in a distant half cousin related by marriage sort of way when they wanted to release their film Fahrenheit 9/11 during an election year. Disney proposed to park the controversial un-Disney like movie-documentary at Lions Gate Film. Harvey's usual big daddy roar for an Academy Award nomination seemed unusualy muffled from so far back behind the Lions Gate earlier this year.

So how does an independent remain an independent anyway? Bob and Harvey Weinstein are distributors afterall not filmmakers. Maybe that's the key.

If filmmakers ban together and sign a creed to not let their egos grow with their blockbuster profits, perhaps they can form a real indie distribution company. This would have to be a mammoth distribution company that even a rat would fear tread.

LeTicia Lee is the author of The Filmmakers Guide to Film Financing (There's An Angel In Your Corner) published by Lulu Press. http://www.lulu.com/content/62990.

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