Best-Picture Shutout Ends Miramax’s 11-Year Run

For the first time in 12 years, Hollywood’s bloodiest Academy Awards battleground will be without its most colorful field general: Miramax Films’ Harvey Weinstein has been shut out of the race for best picture.

The larger-than-life symbol of both the heights of inventive filmmaking and the depths of Academy Awards marketing, Weinstein failed Tuesday to obtain the most-coveted Oscar nomination for his epic romance “Cold Mountain,” snapping Miramax’s remarkable run of nominations for best picture that dates back to “The Crying Game.” Nevertheless, Weinstein will continue to cast a long shadow over the awards race as his spare-no-expense marketing tactics are widely copied by other studios.

“If the streak has ended, we’ll just have to start it again next year,” a publicly upbeat Weinstein said in an interview. Even without a best picture nomination, Miramax still had the most total Academy Award nominations of any studio, with 15. “We’ve had some great success in the past, but I’ll take this day any day of the year.”

Still Hollywood considers a best picture nomination, to say nothing of a win, to be in a league of its own in generating profits along with prestige. Weinstein’s absence from that competition will be as jarring as listening to the Lakers without hearing Chick Hearn. The studio has dominated the Oscars for the last decade and has elevated awards campaigning to an art form, spawning equal numbers of imitators and detractors.

In place of “Cold Mountain,” the films selected for this year’s best picture Oscar are “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” “Lost in Translation,” “Seabiscuit,” “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” and “Mystic River.”

Under the leadership of its co-chairman Weinstein, Miramax changed the very nature of the Oscar race, which culminates a month sooner than in previous years, with the Feb. 29 Academy Awards telecast on ABC. Through hard work, creative marketing and not always gentle persuasion, the Disney-owned studio was often able to raise the prospects of marginally reviewed movies such as “Chocolat” into Hollywood’s upper echelon.

Among the keystones of Miramax’s past and current strategy: establishing telephone banks to call awards voters, hiring outside awards consultants, spending small fortunes on trade and consumer advertising, and shipping thousands of free DVDs and videocassettes. Miramax has also excelled in spreading the compelling story behind the story -- how the studio saved “Shakespeare in Love” from collapse, or its release of “Il Postino” after the death of that film’s star.

More than once, Miramax has promoted its films so aggressively it has incurred the wrath of the academy and rival studios.

Because nearly 6,000 people decide the nominees for best picture, it’s impossible to say why “Cold Mountain,” which received generally strong reviews, was left off the short list.

Just as the studio’s movies have been in the center of the awards season spotlight, so too have some of its more controversial Oscar tactics. “Miramax has been known as the extreme player, but I do believe all that is born out of the same passion to succeed and win” that is shared by all companies, said Bob Berney of Newmarket Films.

Last year, a Miramax publicist ghost-wrote a column attributed to veteran director Robert Wise touting Martin Scorsese, who directed Miramax’s Oscar contender “Gangs of New York.” Partially in response, the academy changed its Oscar guidelines. Its new code of ethics discourages “manipulative and excessive” campaigning and aims to curtail an array of promotional activities, from throwing parties for awards contenders to enlisting Oscar voters to endorse films and filmmakers.

The often obstreperous Weinstein, who says he has taken anger-management classes, has been a subdued presence this awards season. At Sunday’s Golden Globes, he walked quietly through a ballroom filled with competitors, some of whom had unloaded their worst Weinstein stories in a withering new book by Peter Biskind called “Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film.”

Although it is easy to see “Cold Mountain’s” absence from the best picture list as a show business referendum on Weinstein’s sometimes volatile personality and Miramax’s full-throttle campaigning, the film did attract seven nominations -- tying it for the third most -- including best actor for Jude Law and best supporting actress for Renee Zellweger.

But the movie -- based on Charles Frazier’s novel -- was blanked in several categories in which nominations were expected, including best actress for Nicole Kidman and production and costume design. “Cold Mountain” director and screenwriter Anthony Minghella, who took the directing Oscar for Miramax’s 1996 “The English Patient,” was not nominated either.

Miramax did pull off one huge surprise: Its Brazilian drama “City of God” was nominated for best director and three other Oscars. Proving he can still turn the smallest opportunity into a significant advantage, Weinstein said he would move the film into up to 500 theaters within a few weeks -- remarkable for a challenging and violent film that has been in a handful of theaters more than a year and wasn’t nominated for the foreign-language Oscar a year ago, when it was eligible in that category.

Miramax may be on the sidelines for best picture, but campaigning will probably be no less contentious. “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” is considered the best picture front-runner, but the makers of the other four nominated movies are expected to spend tens of millions pushing their films.

“Miramax may have rewritten the book on awards marketing, but Miramax hasn’t been alone in driving up the cost and spectacle of academy campaigning,” said Tom Ortenberg, whose Lions Gate Films released “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” which collected three nominations.

Those behind several contenders for best picture predicted a comparatively civil race, citing not Miramax’s absence but the academy’s efforts to curtail borderline Oscar politicking.

“So far, it’s been a very, very clean campaign. I don’t know what could possibly come up in the next weeks,” said Russell Schwartz, marketing chief at New Line Cinema, which released all the “Lord of the Rings” films. “It will be an interesting race with or without Miramax.”

Miramax has proved that awards attention can propel a film into profitability. At the time nominations were announced for last year’s Oscars, its “Chicago” had grossed $64.6 million. The musical went on to win best picture, and, when all the tickets were counted, its gross had swollen to a robust $168.3 million.

“There’s no question that [awards attention] was part of the gamble in making the movie,” said Tom Rothman of 20th Century Fox, which is distributing “Master and Commander” in a production whose partners include Miramax. The expensive drama collected 10 nominations, trailing only “Rings,” which had 11.

Weinstein maintained that “Cold Mountain” would be profitable even without the added income that typically comes to a best picture selection. It has grossed more than $73 million, and he predicted that it would ultimately top $100 million.

Miramax’s best picture nomination streak dates to 1992’s “The Crying Game,” which was nominated in 1993. In every subsequent year, the studio had at least one -- and, in a couple of cases, two -- best picture nominees. Occasionally, Miramax managed to win a best picture nomination for a longshot such as 2000’s “Chocolat” and 2001’s “In the Bedroom.” The studio took home the top trophy on three occasions: for “The English Patient,” 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love” and 2002’s “Chicago.”

Miramax is also confident that by this time next year it will be back in the middle of the best picture race. Its upcoming films include “The Aviator” with Leonardo DiCaprio, “J.M. Barrie’s Neverland” with Johnny Depp and “An Unfinished Life” featuring Robert Redford.

Weinstein said he was particularly proud of “City of God’s” nominations. “It’s a vindication to people who said we don’t make small movies anymore,” he said of the film about criminal gangs. “It just shows that our core business is healthy.”

Miramax’s other nominations also came from smaller films: “The Barbarian Invasions,” which had two, and -- with one apiece -- “Twin Sisters” and “Dirty Pretty Things.”

“Even though ‘Cold Mountain’ and ‘City of God’ didn’t get a best picture nomination, I’m very thrilled to lead the pack,” Weinstein said, noting that a recent critic of his, Sony Pictures Classics, had 11 fewer nominations than Miramax. “So even without a best picture nomination, we can beat every other studio, and every other independent.”

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Oscar nods

Movies with the most Academy Award nominations announced Tuesday. Miramax’s “Cold Mountain” is the only one not nominated for best picture.

Lord of the Rings...11

Master and Commander...10

Cold Mountain...7

Seabiscuit...7

Mystic River...6

Times staff writer Rachel Abramowitz contributed to this report.