There were lots of surprising small movies getting big nominations today: "Whale Rider," "Monster," "Pieces of April," "Thirteen." They're not Miramax movies, but do you, as someone who changed the way small movies get into theaters and into the hands of Academy voters, do you take some credit for the success of these other movies?

Well, there has been a contention that I killed independent cinema, but not judging from today. I'm sorry, I don't think I did it. I think it's as vibrant and as healthy as ever and now with these Academy Award nominations across the board for these movie companies, you're seeing just how vibrant the market can be. You're seeing that when independent cinema decides to market and love their movies the same way mainstream studios do, they can even be more successful. And it's not Miramax; it's six companies, 10 companies. You know? It's a bunch of people. And I think we all owe a lot to Ted Hope because I think he fought very hard [against the MPAA's ban of film screeners in late 2003], and Project IFP West. None of these movies would be here if there wasn't a screener.

Are there any of these nominees that you wish you had released yourself?

First off I wish we would have financed "Lord of the Rings" when [Miramax parent company] Disney had the opportunity. They passed. So I'm the executive producer of the movie -- all credit goes to New Line.

But there are so many movies. "Mystic River," I thought was absolutely brilliant; I saw it in October. The L.A. Times editorial board asked me what movie do you love the most and I said "Mystic River." So I think that's an incredible achievement, and I mean, it blew me away. So many of the movies blew me away. "Master and Commander," I'm biased, I'm one of the partners on it [Fox financed 50 percent of the film, Miramax 25 percent, and Universal 25 percent] And I think Peter [Weir, the director] did an incredible job on that film, and today he got rewarded.

I am going to ask you about "Cold Mountain."

Go ahead. Fire away.

There has already been some press -- and I'm sure there will be more Wednesday -- about how the Academy snubbed Miramax by snubbing "Cold Mountain." What's your reaction to that?

You can't call it a snub. What happened was, Miramax led the Academy with the most nominations of any studio. Warner Brothers was second with 11 [Fox and Fox Searchlight combined had 14 nominations]. Miramax had 15 [Cold Mountain received seven, "City of God" four, "Barbarian Invasions" two, and "Dirty Pretty Things" and "Twin Sisters" both received one.]

So there's no Miramax snub. You know, people feel a certain way about a movie. There were five great movies nominated, let's not take away their power. If there was a Miramax snub, Miramax would have had no nominations. It certainly wouldn't have dominated, and we dominated. I mean, we are the most nominated studio. If you count "Master and Commander" with our 15, it's 25. And we've dominated year after year with the most nominations and most best-picture wins.

But this year we got our strategy wrong. Because every year we always try to take that Christmas [release] slot, go last, because in January, February and March, a movie has less competition at the box office. This year with the shortened release schedule [the Academy Awards were moved from late March to February 29; nominating ballots were due two weeks earlier than past years] we said, "You know what? We'll overcome that." And I don't think we were able to do that.

The movies that got nominated were, No. 1, "Seabiscuit," which was released in August; No. 2, "Lost in Translation," released in September; No. 3, "Mystic River," released in October; No. 4, "Master and Commander" [which was released in November]; and the last movie, with the last date, was "Lord of the Rings" [which opened Dec. 17] and I believe there have been two other "Lord of the Rings." You know? So no movie after that date and let's face it "Lord of the Rings" in three days out-grossed every other movie combined, you know, it was that big. So you have the situation where the early, early campaign this year really, really hurt us.

But each category votes individually, so if you got lucky and enough music people saw your movies, you'd get music nominations like we did. If you get lucky the editors see your movies and you get an editing nomination. But only on best picture must you have everybody see your movie. And I don't think we had it. I just don't think we had it.

I just don't think we were able to get the movie out to as many people as needed to see it before the voting closed. And that's because the schedule got reduced by two weeks of voting. Last year you had the Golden Globes, and everybody would watch that and then they'd watch their movies. They'd screen them. This year, so many people tell me anecdotally that they hadn't seen the film, they just didn't have a chance over Christmas. Therefore, they don't see it, they don't vote, and that's the end of us.

But to play devil's advocate, your late release didn't have an impact on "Cold Mountain's" Golden Globe nominations. It was the most-nominated Golden Globe picture.

Nor did it impact its BAFTA nominations; it got the most British Academy Awards. But the reason for both of those things is simple. There aren't as many BAFTA voters [as Academy voters] and we were able to send cassettes out earlier than anybody else. The movie opened in England earlier -- I mean compared to the other movies that opened. With the Golden Globes, there's only a hundred members so it's easier to screen for all of them.

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