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Indie Company Cuts StaffLOS ANGELES — Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, the producer of an eclectic string of upscale movies including “Lars and the Real Girl” and “The Kite Runner” but not a single commercial hit, said on Friday that it was scaling back its ambitions. The company now plans to make two or three movies a year, instead of five or six, and laid off its marketing staff and other workers. Sidney Kimmel Entertainment will no longer pay the marketing and distribution costs for its movies, a sum that has passed $25 million on average for specialty films. The most recent example, “Charlie Bartlett,” opened on Feb. 22 and has made just $3.3 million so far. That film, like several other flops, was released by MGM under a distribution deal that expires this year, in which Kimmel pays costs and a fee. Kimmel will now seek film-by-film partnerships with studios that will absorb those costs (but keep more of any box-office windfall). The company was formed by Sidney J. Kimmel, a garment industry billionaire and one of a wave of film financiers with fortunes built in other businesses. In an interview several months ago, he played down his company’s disappointing results, saying that an eventual box-office success would pay for his misses. His films have usually featured blue-chip talent, like Don Cheadle in “Talk to Me,” and budgets of about $12 million. The biggest investment has been the $21 million “Synecdoche, N.Y.,” the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman (the writer of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Adaptation”), planned for release this year. More a mini-studio than a film-finance boutique, the company hired marketing executives, postproduction experts and others, ballooning in size to 39 people. Six assistants were laid off at noon on Friday. Several executives have also been told their contracts will not be renewed, including Mark Krystal, the president of marketing. Others, including the veteran indie-world distribution executive Bingham Ray, will stay on. Tag CloudExternal InformationAdditional InformationDance: Supreme Commander...Superfino... The Gotan Project... A Foggy Reunion With Horror’s Master... Where Am I?News Main Page - Business - Indie Company Cuts Staff |
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