DISNEY - WEINSTEINS UNDER PRESSURE TO PRODUCE HITS

WEINSTEINS UNDER PRESSURE TO PRODUCE HITS

The Weinstein Bros. are under intense pressure from investors to deliver a hit within the next few months, something that Harvey Weinstein has acknowledged in an interview with Sunday's New York Times . Weinstein told the newspaper that unless he does so by February (when The Weinstein Company releases Hoodwinked 2 ), "I'll be driving you, or making cheap hamburgers, or selling trailers, or refrigerators, or something. If the slate works, we're right back to plan." The company is set to release Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds on Friday, and, in a separate interview with the Times , Tarantino said, ""I've got their undivided attention. ... They want Inglourious Basterds to be a hit even more than I want it to be a hit. Even in the grand scheme of things, it's more important to them than me." The newspaper noted that since splitting from Disney four years ago, the Weinsteins have produced a slew of flops and only a handful of hits. Harvey Weinstein blames the trouble on his being sidetracked by other businesses his company ventured into. "I kind of delegated the process of production and acquisitions," he told the Times. "Yes, I had a say in it, but was I 100 percent concentrating? Absolutely not. I thought I could build the company and delegate authority, and that's where it went wrong."

17/08/2009