InsideOut Interview: Bob Weinstein

by Owen Lipstein May/June 2008

Bob and his brother Harvey, founders of the powerhouse Miramax Films (named for their parents, Miriam and Max), are the most successful movie producers in the country. They sold Miramax to Disney in 1993 for $80 million. Their new production company is called, simply, The Weinstein Company. We had a feeling they would have something interesting to say about play. We caught up with Bob in the middle of who knows what. And we were right.

Owen Lipstein: What do you make of your and your brother’s success and body of work?

Bob Weinstein: I guess I could put it this way: The secret to our success is to know that there is no formula. The formula for our success is that we are keenly aware that there is no specific formula.

Early on, looking at movies and buying movies was pleasing to me and my brother. It was literally that. There were no marketing considerations, nothing. It was just, do we like it? So “The English Patient” was a movie that was originally at Twentieth Century Fox, and there was some cast that they did not like, and they were not going to do the movie. They didn’t want to do it without superstars in it. It came to our attention. We both read the script, loved it, and it was enough that Anthony Minghella, who we loved as a director, was directing it, and Saul Zaentz was producing it, and that was the end of our thought process. [Our process has] been based on the written word, the script and the director who was going to direct the script. Those are the two main elements.

OL: So what you are describing is your personal passion?

BW: Yeah, we do [wonder] if [a movie will] do business, but it’s basically more like would we want to see it? I know it sounds crazy, but even in the Dimension [Films label, which they brought from Miramax to their new company] world, I’d want to see “Scream.” Maybe I’m emotionally stunted, but it was a good mystery to me.

OL: You are describing what you and your brother like to do and what you care about. If you were to try to tell someone else how to do it, you couldn’t really do that, could you?

BW: I can only speak for how we do it. You know what I am saying? There are other successful people in our business that have made great movies. I don’t know how you succeed without a passion for the business, for mainly the movies themselves.

OL: What’s it like to have a creative and financial relationship with a sibling?

BW: It’s been great, to tell you the truth. I think that Harvey’s tastes are much more towards Academy kinds of movies and… higher-brow fare. Mine are sort of more mainstream and pop. Funny, I think we meet at “Pulp Fiction” in terms of our tastes. However, we have been supportive of each other. I certainly love the movies he makes, and he loves the movies I make, and we appreciate each other’s movies. We’ve been a great sounding board [for each other], so it’s worked.

OL: Are you prepared to criticize him, or he you, across all aspects of a production?

BW: Yep.

OL: That must be good for your character!

BW: Being that we’re brothers, our sensitivity level is very thick. That’s a secret to our success, though. If he’s telling me, “Hey B.W., nobody else is going to tell you, but you are heading over a cliff,” then I’d go, “What’d you say?” as I realize, Oh my God, there is a cliff over there. I didn’t see it coming, but he did. Vice versa, too, so it’s been very good like that.

OL: Is the younger brother/older brother dynamic a part of that, or has the birth order not made much of a difference?

BW: I think in the beginning it probably was. I certainly looked to Harvey for his experience and his leadership qualities. I think we’re both too old now. I haven’t recognized it lately.

OL: Do you think of yourselves fundamentally as entrepreneurs, or as moviemakers?

BW: When I’ve tried to think about it as business more than an art form first, I’ve not been as successful. How does one understand whether it’s “The English Patient” or “[The] Crying Game” or somebody else’s movie, “Juno“? You can’t put that into the quantification of the business plan that is what you would think of as successful. And we’ve certainly tried to replicate certain successes. But I don’t think it works that way.

OL: What has it been like to watch the careers of so many actors you’ve helped get established?

BW: Early on, 20 years ago, we found that a lot of people passed through the company. I think then when we got aligned with Disney, the people that we discovered or worked with when they started out continued with us because we had the growth potential to grow alongside of them, as their financial needs might have been greater. That’s continued also with The Weinstein Company. That was a growth problem very, very early on, and one that we solved.

OL: What can you tell me about Talk magazine? What is the moral of the story of that magazine for you?

BW: I’d have to let Harvey answer that. The moral of anything that you try and don’t succeed at is [to ask yourself] just why that would stop you from doing anything. So what? You keep going. I’ve had many failures in movies. That doesn’t stop me from doing them.

OL: Are you having as much fun as you used to? You’ve created this new company. You’re climbing a whole other set of mountains. Does this feel like a third act in a five-act play?

BW: I hope it’s a five-act play, or I don’t know how many more acts I can survive. Maybe it’s a third act in a three-act play. Five acts. I love it. Yeah, it is a lot of fun. The movies always make it fun. That’s the one thing that never changes. You know, the dynamics of business can always change. The movies and the people you work with is what makes it fun. I don’t think I’d be very good at making three-minute movies, or interstitials, or whatever the new art form will be. And whatever it is, it is — that’s fine by me, but I wouldn’t be good at it.

OL: You must feel very lucky to know what you are good at and to be able to do it.

BW: I do know. Yeah, that’s right. I do consider myself lucky.

OL: What do you think is next for you?

BW: I like to stick close to what it is I like, and that’s the passion. We’re in a movie company. We’re doing a lot of other initiatives and I could go into depth about all of them, but… the core of our business is movies. That’s the core of our passion. It may be other things to make money off of, but all the profit and the way we look at profit — and we’ve been so fortunate in this — is that it just gives us more money to make more movies. It is a process.

OL: You’ve watched a lot of people over time get very wealthy. What do you think this does for one’s character?

BW: It’s way beyond my means to answer. I don’t know. I can only speak for myself. The money is always a means to an end here, and the end is just love of the movie business. We are gratified to be in it. Me and my brother are two lucky guys, especially [in terms of] when we came along. We thought it was tough. I think it’s tougher now to start a business, for entrepreneurs such as me and my brother.