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audiences don’t want a challenging film. In fact, the smart movies that are upcoming will do well.
Q You will be 50 next year. Sum up Harvey Weinstein and Miramax today?
A It’s a happier, friendlier place. In the beginning we were fighting for survival just trying to meet the monthly pay- checks. We were under-financed and it was a seat of the pants operation, fly by night. I look back with regret on
some of those temperamental days on my part. You can rationalise it all you want, but I don’t think I was the
best I could be as a boss or
pleasant enough. With the suc- cess and stability we now have it’s just a fun place to work. We’re very good to our employ- ees. Our salaries, which used to be among the lowest in the business 10 years ago, are amongst the highest now. The old temperamental Harvey
used to have at least one outburst a week. No, I’m not a pussycat, but now
it’s perhaps two a year – and I’m even embarrassed for those two. They seem so superfluous and idiotic.
Q What’s the Next Big Challenge?
A I read a book when I was boy during the period when I had my eye poked out; it was Mila
18 by Leon Uris, about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, and I swore to my Aunt Shirley, who gave me the book and nurtured my love of reading, that I would one day make a movie of the book. Now I’ve hired Hossein Amini to write a screenplay and I’ll direct it. Bob and I wrote and directed a film [Playing For Keeps] back in 1986 – and we should have fired the director and the writer! Now I’m going back into the fray. I’ve asked Anthony Minghella and Martin Scorsese to produce and they’re both doing it for revenge. Marty says it will be the shortest epic in the history of the movies. He’ll personally see to that in the editing room. ■
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“The old temperamental Harvey used to have at least one outburst a week. Now it’s perhaps two a year – and I’m embarrassed for those two.”