Disney restructures specialty film label Miramax Films

Walt Disney Studios is dramatically scaling back its specialty film label Miramax Films, slashing 50 jobs, cutting back the number of movies it releases and consolidating its marketing, distribution, operations and administrative support functions into the parent studio in Burbank.

Miramax President Daniel Battsek will continue to oversee development, production and business and legal affairs out of the unit's New York offices. Battsek, the British executive who was handpicked by recently ousted Disney Studios chief Dick Cook to run the company four years ago, will report to Cook's soon-to-be-announced successor.

With the elimination of 50 positions, some 20 people will be left to work out of MIramax's New York and Los Angeles offices.

The move, which had been anticipated, will see Miramax cut its annual release slate in half. The distributor will now release just three films a year, down from six to eight.

"This restructuring maximizes operating efficiencies and provides significant cost savings while allowing Miramax to focus on its greatest strength: the creation of high-quality entertainment," said Disney Studios President Alan Bergman.

Disney is the latest major media company, including Time Warner, Viacom and News Corp., to either scale back or shutter its low-profit margin-specialty label in recent times.

--Claudia Eller

Previous Posts:

Will there be a place for Miramax in Disney's new movie script?

Can Miramax survive Hollywood's retrenchment?

'Supernatural': 'The End' is near (let's talk about the episode)

The following post discusses Thursday's "Supernatural" episode, "The End." For photos and (eventually) promo videos of the next two episodes of the show, look here and at the end of this post.

Sorry for the delay in posting my thoughts on "The End." And I'm sorry that this is somewhat shorter and perhaps not quite as thorough as my usual posts. Friday was a crazy day for me. And I can say for sure that this week is the last time David Letterman comes between me and the Winchesters!

Anyway...

Ben Edlund is known for being the writer of "funny" episodes of "Supernatural" (funny episodes, that, I should point out, frequently have serious and thoughtful themes about morality and loyalty). There's no doubt that "The End" was the work of his distinctive mind. Pink panties? Stoned Castiel? Killer lil' zombie girl? Yes, please!

In all seriousness, though, the episode "The End" reminded me of most was Edlund's wonderful "On the Head of a Pin." Both episodes examined how far people are willing to go in order to achieve their goals. Does "The End" justify the means? Do the means justify the ends? After you say those kinds of things a lot of times, what does "means" mean?

Suffice to say, this was a further delineation of what the Winchesters will and won't do to stop evil. If you abandon your friends, if you sacrifice everyone who has ever meant anything to you, if you leave your family, if you are willing to do anything and everything your enemy is capable of, then the enemy has already won.

FutureDean had become someone Dean didn't want to be. And the lesson he took away was not that he should say yes to Michael. The lesson was that he made a mistake when he walked away from his brother.

As Eric Kripke said in this interview, deep down, this show and especially this season the themes are all about family -- the family you're related to by blood and the family you make for yourself. No matter what tale of woe Satan is selling, no matter what is going down in the world, you stick with the people you care about or there's really no point.

"We keep each other human," Dean said to his brother.

What's that thing that other show said? "Live together, die alone."

Dean thought he was doing the right thing by denying himself his bond with his brother, but really, what was he fighting for if not for their bond? By the way, great work by both actors, as usual, in that phone call in which Dean told Sam to stay away.

But at some point, by denying your connections with others, you're denying your humanity. The Devil, as played by Jared Padalecki, is an eloquent guy (also very tall). But you don't reinforce your connection to the values of humanity by unleashing an Apocalypse on them. Lucifer's ends do not at all justify his means.

And if Dean were to become FutureDean, someone divorced from love and friendship and every important bond, than the difference between him and Lucifer would be the size of Dean's … arsenal.

It's the classic story of a character becoming that which he fights, which was well told here. In the words of some guy (was it Sawyer on "Lost"? Or Nietzsche? I always get them mixed up), "If you look long enough into the void the void begins to look back through you."

It's interesting, I guess I was geared up for a full-on zombie apocalypse, which would have been awesome (the glimpse we saw of soldier spraying Croatoan infectees with bullets was like a mini-Vietnam movie, complete with an incongruous pop song on the soundtrack. That is completely a compliment).

I probably got worked up about the "gun-toting Cas/zombie apocalypse" idea than I should have, but it was partly due to the photos and videos the CW released before the episode. (Must. Resist. Spoilers. Wait! Can't. So. Weak.)

"The End" wasn't quite so full of "Night of the Living Dead" zombie-blasting, which I get -- the show doesn't have the money for that kind of thing, and really, after a while, seeing Croats getting wasted sure would get old.

And as it happened, Dean vs Dean and Dean vs DevilSam had quite a few interesting moments. When you come right down to it, like "Head of a Pin," "The End" was basically a series of conversations -- conversation about the nature of evil and how it can be contained and what you should or should not sacrifice to be rid of it. At what point do you sacrifice so much that you are no longer worth saving yourself?

Sure, Castiel's orgy sounds more fun, but who doesn't want to talk philosophy with a copy of themselves and/or Satan? Plus hear FutureDean admit that, well, mistakes were made? Good times, people, good times.

If I have one issue with "The End," it's a feeling that maybe the Winchesters got back together too quickly. We only really had one full episode where they were apart. And I don't think that their issues are resolved -- that will take longer to work out, no doubt. Probably the entire season, if not beyond.

But I think it would have been interesting to see them stay apart at least a little while longer. Sometimes distance is really the only means of getting perspective on a complicated situation. And it frankly changed things up to see different dynamics at work.

I'm betting there are some fans who would have been extremely ticked at another episode of Dean and Cas riding around and working cases and Sam having some Thoughtful Alone Time. I have to say, I would love to see more of Dean and Cas together (even though, as we discussed last week, many of us thought the brothel scene was either on or over the edge in terms of overdoing the Cas humor).

All I'm saying is, I wonder if getting Sam and Dean back together was a decision dictated by the network, by fear of a fan backlash or by Kripke's own instincts. If it's the last one of those three things -- and it may well be -- and if we get a ton of solid episodes heading into the middle of the season, then I'll shut my cake hole and be fine with it.

(Sidebar on Cas: As you may know, Misha Collins has spent time in a Buddhist monastery and he's studied Buddhist teachings. I follow those teachings and practices myself, so seeing Castiel spout that spiritual mumbo-jumbo in his Love Cabin was pretty amusing -- it wasn't at all far from the kind of stuff I've heard at at meditation retreats, though so far I've never experienced the "let's have an orgy" aspect of  dharma talks. Far from it! In any case, Collins was great in this episode and FutureCas was pretty amusing, but again, I generally like NowCas a lot more. I know he'll evolve as long as he's on the show, but as Dean indicated, I don't want Cas become a different person. Half the character's appeal is that he doesn't quite understand what being human entails. Still, it was a fun change of pace to see a very human Cas. For this week, anyway.)

A few random thoughts before I turn it over to you thoughtful and always interesting folks:

We don't know why Sam said yes. Wonder if we will ever find out. Golden opportunity at the start of the episode to use Journey's "Separate Ways." Come on! Dean calling himself a dick. Awesome. The pink panties: "We kind of liked it." Golden. I liked having Chuck around as comic relief, but I thought he was underused. And did he not foretell Dean 2.0's arrival because it wasn't supposed to happen, because it he'd lost his prophetic mojo or because Zachariah had constructed a false reality and Chuck wasn't the Chuck we know? All in all, the scenes of Dean talking to himself were well handled. They must have been technically challenging, but they worked fine, and Jensen Ackles did a very good job of calibrating the different Deans. And it was powerful when he and DevilSam talked and Dean cried. They were manly tears, but they were tears. Jared as DevilSam -- thoughts? I thought there were a few mannered moments early in the scene, but I thought he notably relaxed into his DevilSam performance as the scene went on. His subtle reactions at the end of the scene were particularly effective. I have to call shenanigans on one thing here: The Colt could kill the Devil? Really? I dunno, that just seems… odd to me. Is it just me? In any case, I can't call Full Shenanigans. At this point I'm going to let them go with a warning -- Partial Shenanigans, if you will. Because maybe the "Supernatural" powers that be don't intend for the Colt to be anything but a means to drive the story forward for now, and the role the Colt will play is part of a bigger plan (i.e., maybe the whole intention is to find out that the Colt has no power over Lucifer, and the idea is for the boys 'n' Cas to figure out a Plan B -- like, you know, giant space robot laser death rays. Or something.)

Episode summaries for the next two "Supernaturals" follow. Spoilers ahoy. 

"Fallen Idols," airs Oct. 8: "Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean(Jensen Ackles) decide to start hunting together again and their firstcase leads them to a small town whose inhabitants are being killed byfamous dead icons like Abraham Lincoln and James Dean's car. However,after two teenage girls come forward and claim their friend waskidnapped by Paris Hilton (in a cameo role as herself), the brothersaren't sure what they are hunting anymore. Jim Conway directed theepisode written by Julie Siege." [Find a photo (and video to come) from the episode here.]

"I Believe the Children Are Our Future," airs Oct. 15: "Sam(Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) investigate a series of oddmurders that strangely resemble fairytales and urban legends.  Thebrothers track down an 11-year-old boy named Jesse (guest star GattlinGriffith) and realize that whatever Jesse believes is coming true. Castiel (Misha Collins) tells Sam and Dean that Jesse is a seriousthreat and needs to be eliminated.  Charles Beeson directed the episodewritten by Andrew Dabb& Daniel Loflin."

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