High profile for some years at the Cannes Film Festival, this is the first time Miramax has taken a stand at MIPCOM, where it will flex its new-found multiplatform muscles.
Lang has big plans to exploit the company’s prestigious movie library including with branded channels further down the line something that didn’t happen while Miramax was owned by Disney. “I love that company, but it wasn’t a good fit, they didn’t have the focus on the library in the way that we really plan to and the first step with that is reaching out to all the various international television buyers and saying, ‘Hey we’re open for business and we’d love to work together’.”
The fund that bought Miramax from Disney for $663m was put together by Tom Barrack of LA-based Colony Capital, construction billionaire Ron Tutor; and Barrack’s friend, actor Rob Lowe. Lowe’s first job was to oversee the evaluation of some 650 projects in-development, found in a warehouse which he describes as “like the ending of Indiana Jones”. He told the MIPCOM Preview: “You would find the seventh script in an unmarked box, and it turns out to be the movie Anthony Minghella was going to do before he died, to be produced by Sydney Pollack. That’s the kind of stuff you come across.”
Central to Lang’s strategy is to embrace digital, and that includes heading for the cloud. “The reason why I’m such a big advocate of the cloud and digital locker is because if somebody buys something digitally today, I think it’s about the worst consumer experience you could ever have. Everyone has made this argument that no one will ever buy stuff digitally but I don’t know if that’s a fair conclusion because we haven’t built an ecosystem yet that can make that decision happen. But I sure know we have a better shot at doing it if you create the ecosystem, so that’s why it’s important to me.”
Lang will be joined onstage by Ted Sarandos, chief content officer of Netflix with whom Miramax signed a $100m non-exclusive output deal back in May. Together they will discuss digital trends and the future of the entertainment industry.
This and more in the MIPCOM Preview magazine, online here!
Miramax & Netflix’ joint Media Mastermind keynote takes place October 3, 12.00. Full MIPCOM conference programme
