Hollywood's New Moguls

Lots of people think the only real change has been the gusher of Wall Street money that's enabling more wealthy outsiders to leverage their balance sheets to make a Hollywood splash. At least one newcomer has already crashed—Henry Winterstern, a Canadian entrepreneur who sought to elevate the indie movie company First Look Studios into the majors. "Whenever there is excess capital, people take risks," says Tom Rosenberg, chairman of longtime indie Lakeshore Entertainment ("Runaway Bride" and "Million Dollar Baby"). "The money has rushed into Hollywood in the last year and a half. In a year and a half, it'll go someplace else. It's the fad now."

Wall Street is no doubt enabling this new crop of moguls—a recent change from when the major studios monopolized the smart money. Now, blue-chip firms such as Goldman Sachs are trying to raise, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars to launch indies. Among the beneficiaries, too, are former studio execs like Mark Gill (Miramax) and Rob Friedman (Paramount). The surge is also helping indie godfathers Harvey and Bob Weinstein. They're back on the indie scene with the upstart Weinstein Co. after several acrimonious years at Disney, which now owns their Miramax studio. "There are lots of people ... doing a first-rate job at producing, acquiring and distributing films, similar to the model we created at Miramax," says Harvey. "In fact, many are taking an even more hands-on approach."

With credits dating back two decades (he backed the 1986 hit "9i Weeks"), Kimmel isn't quite a Hollywood parvenu. But now he wants to control the show, not just be the guy who writes the check. "I wasn't 100 percent focused when I started [producing] in 1993," says Kimmel, who in those days was full-time CEO of Jones Apparel. Changing the rules has been more evolutionary than revolutionary: for his film "Breach," he had to rely on the old approach, handing control of the film to Universal for marketing and release. But he won't be doing that with the comedy "Death at a Funeral" and "Married Life" under his new MGM distribution. "I'm in the movie business full-time now," says Kimmel. Which is good news for the redecorator of Johnny Carson's house.

© 2007