Data Processing: Making Money Off Youtube

Amid a shrinking home entertainment market, many in Hollywood have questioned whether any investment in a film library these days is a wise one. However, people close to Colony said the firm is convinced that Miramax was a largely ignored asset that will generate enough cash to repay the debt portion of the purchase within four years.

The library comes with about $300 million in revenue committed from existing deals, along with approximately $100 million in projected revenue for movies released in the last 10 years, people close to the acquisition said.

Under Lang, the new Miramax is expected to explore making a digital distribution deal with Google’s YouTube, building miramax.com as a destination site to view movies online, and launching a new cable channel devoted to its library, which includes titles such as "Shakespeare In Love" and "Chicago." The new owners will also seek a new distributor for Miramax's DVDs, a service that will continue to be handled by Disney for the next several months.

The new Miramax will have between 60 and 80 employees and about $15 million in annual overhead spending, said people with knowledge of the plans. Though executives will explore rights deals and partnerships for sequels and spinoffs based on its library, Miramax won’t finance the production of new films for at least a year, those people said.

A key figure in the Miramax negotiations was Nanula, a longtime senior executive at Disney who served as chief financial officer when the company acquired the specialty studio in 1993 from the Weinsteins.

When his boss, Barrack, gave him a green light to pursue entertainment acquisitions in late June, Nanula suggested they look at Miramax. Barrack contacted Tutor, who was already in talks with Disney to buy Miramax after a previous deal with Burkle and the Weinstein brothers collapsed.

As he had longstanding relationships with several Disney executives, including its lead negotiator, Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy Kevin Mayer, Nanula spearheaded the talks beginning in early July. He and fellow Colony principal Justin Chang helped to shape the deal that Colony, Tutor and Disney agreed to in principle on July 23.

In the ensuing four months, many details of the purchase were reshaped, as investors originally brought in by Tutor, including Morgan Creek Productions Chief Executive James Robinson, were replaced by parties associated with Colony, most notably the Qatar fund.

Colony and Tutor plan to begin assembling their executive team in the coming weeks. Along with Lang, who has extensive experience in digital media, they are expected to hire a senior television distribution executive to sell Miramax movies to cable and broadcast networks around the world. At one point, talks were underway with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer TV executive Jim Packer, but the two sides didn't reach an agreement.

-- Ben Fritz

Related:

Ron Tutor-led group closes Miramax deal

New Miramax closing in on CEO, other executives

Disney agrees to sell Miramax to investor group led by Ron Tutor

Top photo: Thomas J. Barrack. Bottom photo: Richard Nanula. Credit: Colony Capital.

Honesty time: I don’t watch Dancing with the Stars, but I’m going to suck it up and try to watch for the sake of my…ahem…art. Apparently, this Maksim Chmerkovskiy guy is quite the heartthrob. He doesn’t really rock my boat, but I don’t judge. I know a lot of people don’t understand my attraction to Orlando Bloom. He’s just so pretty!

But back to Maksim. First off, he’s still on the show. His partner is Brandy. He’s not the one who’s been out and about holding hands with Bristol Palin. He was engaged to fellow DwtS dancer Karina Smirnoff for a time and reportedly hooked up with former partner Erin Andrews. I’m not sure about his relationship status now.

Bullying is a hot topic, and Maks he says he was bullied as a kid for being a dancer.

The 30-year-old was born in the USSR but his family immigrated to the US when he was 14, where he had problems making friends due to the language barrier and his love of dance.

“I was always small and skinny. I’d sit at the back of the room in school because I didn’t have many friends, because I had different interests….There was the usual sexuality-related stuff, people calling me gay. When I’d say I danced, people would act like I was diseased. Halloween sucked for me, as my windows would be egged. It hurt and was very upsetting.

I was absolutely picked on. When we moved to the U.S., my second day I was beaten up and had my roller blades stolen. I was 14. But all that was an invaluable lesson to me in determination. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!”

[From In Touch Weekly, print edition, November 15, 2010]

Maks credits his family with helping him through the bullying, but also thanks the same kids who bullied him.

“I went out a few months ago and ran into some kids I went to school with who were in cliques I didn’t belong to. The guys came up to me and said, ‘Maks, mad respect! We always knew you’d make it.’ I was like, ‘That’s funny. When you bullied me for my lunch money, it didn’t sound like you were respecting me.’ They apologized. I credit my success to the kids who beat me up!

Bullying is upsetting and shameful, but the shame is on the bully. My advice is to find a place you can go to where you feel you belong…Change your environment if you have to. Start over. Your life has too much of a price to throw it away!”

[From In Touch Weekly, print edition, November 15, 2010]

It seems like Maks is jumping on the “Famous People Who Were Also Bullied” bandwagon, basically telling kids being bullied to suck it up like he did and turn it into a positive experience. If YouTube and Facebook has existed 15 years ago when was being bullied, he may realize that bullying can be more severe when it also ends up online for everyone to see.

On the other hand, he does reinforce the “It Gets Better” message, which can be helpful to teens who think high school is the eternal ninth circle of hell. At least that’s what it was like for me, until I left for college. College didn’t change me from a geek to a swan, but like Maks said, I found other geeks like me to hang around with.

As for Maks, he competes tonight on Dancing with the Stars on ABC, where they will do the “insta-dance.” This means the couples won’t find out which song they’ll be dancing to until they’re on the dance floor.

Photos courtesy of WENN. Note by Kaiser: He has a really tiny head!

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Thursday, December 9, 2010

Making Money Off Youtube

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