Bob Weinstein | |
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Born | Robert Weinstein October 18, 1954 New York City, U.S. |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1979–present |
Spouse | Anne Clayton (m. 2000;div. 2012) |
Children | 4 |
Relatives | Harvey Weinstein (brother) |
Notes | |
Robert Weinstein (born October 18, 1954) is an American film producer. He is the founder and head of Dimension Films, former co-chairman of Miramax Films and The Weinstein Company (TWC), all of which he co-founded with his older brother, Harvey. He has focused on making action and horror films. [4]
Weinstein was born in Flushing, Queens, in New York City. He was raised in an Ashkenazi Jewish family. [5] [6] His parents were Max Weinstein, a diamond cutter, [7] and Miriam ( née Postel). [7] [8] He grew up with his older brother, Harvey Weinstein, in a housing co-op named Electchester in New York City. [9] and attended John Bowne High School like his older brother. [10]
Bob, his brother Harvey Weinstein, and Corky Burger independently produced rock concerts as Harvey & Corky Productions in Buffalo through most of the 1970s. [9] [11] Both Weinstein brothers had grown up with a passion for movies, and they nurtured a desire to enter the film industry.
In the late 1970s, using profits from their concert promotion business, the brothers created a small independent film distribution company called Miramax Films, named after their parents Miriam and Max. The company's first releases were primarily music-oriented concert films, such as Paul McCartney's Rockshow . In the early 1980s, Miramax Films acquired the rights to two British films of benefit shows filmed for the human rights organization Amnesty International. Working closely with Martin Lewis, the producer of the original films, the Weinstein brothers edited the two films into one movie tailored for the American market. The resulting film, released as The Secret Policeman's Other Ball in May 1982, became Miramax's first hit. The movie raised considerable sums for Amnesty International and was credited by Amnesty with having helped to raise its profile in the United States.
The Weinsteins slowly built upon this success throughout the 1980s with arthouse films that achieved critical attention and modest commercial success. Harvey Weinstein and Miramax Films gained wider attention in 1988 with the release of Errol Morris' documentary The Thin Blue Line , which detailed the struggle of Randall Adams, a wrongfully convicted inmate sentenced to death row. The publicity that soon surrounded the case resulted in Adams' release and nationwide publicity for Miramax Films. The following year, their successful launch release of Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape propelled Miramax Films to become the most successful independent studio in America.[ citation needed ]
Miramax Films continued to grow its library of films and directors until, in 1993, Disney offered Harvey and Bob $80 million for ownership of Miramax Films. Agreeing to the deal that would cement their Hollywood clout and ensure that they would remain at the head of their company, Miramax Films followed the next year with their first blockbuster, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction .
1996 brought Miramax Films' first Academy Award for Best Picture with the victory of The English Patient . This would start a string of critical successes that would include Good Will Hunting and Shakespeare in Love .
On March 29, 2005, it was announced that the Weinstein brothers would leave Miramax Films on September 30 and would form their own production company, The Weinstein Company (TWC). [12] Five years later, in 2010, Disney sold Miramax Films to the Qatari group Filmyard Holdings, who in turn sold it to another Qatari entity, the beIN Media Group, in 2016.[ citation needed ]
On December 4, 2017, Bob Weinstein filed a trademark application for Watch This Entertainment. [13] Almost two years later, Weinstein announced his new production company to the world, with a focus on "family films, comedies and upscale adult thrillers", and a first project of an animated feature titled Endangered, with Téa Leoni serving as co-producer and voicing a lead character. [14]
Weinstein has been married and divorced twice. He married Anne Clayton, a former book editor, in 2000. They lived in a large apartment in The Beresford at 7 West 81st Street on the Upper West Side. Clayton filed for divorce in April 2012, and sought a protective order because she feared "bodily harm". [4] Weinstein issued a statement from Washington-based interventionist Don Sloane, denying that Weinstein was a danger to his wife, and alleging that she was reacting to a family intervention conducted to address her alcoholism. [4] Her lawyers denied that she suffered from any addiction and said that Sloane was her husband's "paid agent" and that the two had never met. [4]
In October 2017, Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment by Amanda Segel, who had worked as a showrunner on the Weinstein Company-produced Spike TV miniseries The Mist . Segel alleged that Weinstein had made several unwanted sexual overtures to her beginning June 2016 and continuing for three months. [15] [16] Weinstein's attorney Bert Fields issued a statement denying the allegations. [17]
Segel's allegation came in the context of the much more high profile sexual abuse cases against Weinstein's brother, Harvey. In October 2017, Bob spoke about the allegations of sex crimes against his brother, saying he was "sick and disgusted" by Harvey's actions. Bob denied any foreknowledge of his brother's crimes before the allegations became public, but acknowledged that Harvey had a history of extramarital affairs and verbal abuse towards family members, and claimed that he himself was subjected to Harvey's verbal and physical abuse. Bob further said he had rarely spoken to his brother in the previous five years because he "could not take his cheating, his lying and also his attitude toward everyone". [18]
Note: In all productions Weinstein has functioned as a co-producer with other producers.
Year | Award | Category | Work | Result | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1996 | Britannia Awards | Excellence in Film | Won | [19] | |
1997 | Gotham Awards | Career Tribute Awards | Won | [20] [21] [22] | |
1998 | GLAAD Media Award | Excellence in Media Award | Won | [23] | |
2001 | British Independent Film Awards | Special Jury Prize | Won | [24] | |
2002 | British Film Institute | British Film Institute Fellowship | Won | [25] | |
Hugo Award | Best Dramatic Presentation | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring | Won | [26] | |
2002 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Non-Fiction Program (Reality) | Project Greenlight | Nominated | [27] |
2003 | Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films | Special Jury Prize | Won | ||
DVD Exclusive Awards | Producer Award | Won | |||
2004 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program | Project Greenlight | Nominated | [28] |
2005 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program | Nominated | [29] | |
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Project Runway | Nominated | |||
2006 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Nominated | [30] | |
2006 | News and Documentary Emmy Awards | Outstanding Historical Programming - Long Form | Paper Clips (film) | Nominated | |
2007 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Project Runway | Nominated | [31] |
2008 | Christopher Award | Feature Films | The Great Debaters | Won | [32] |
2009 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Project Runway | Nominated | [33] |
2010 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Nominated | [34] | |
2011 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Nominated | [35] | |
2012 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Nominated | [36] | |
2013 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Nominated | [37] | |
African-American Film Critics Association | Cinema Vanguard Award | Won | [38] | ||
PGA Awards | Milestone Award | Won | [39] | ||
Bronze Wrangler | Theatrical Motion Picture | Django Unchained | Won | [40] | |
2014 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Project Runway | Nominated | [41] |
2015 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Nominated | [42] | |
Capri Hollywood International Film Festival | Capri Producer Award | The Hateful Eight | Won | ||
Christopher Award | Feature Films | St. Vincent | Won | [32] | |
2016 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Project Runway | Nominated | [43] |
2017 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program | Nominated | [44] |
Miramax, LLC, formerly known as Miramax Films, is an American independent film and television production and distribution company founded on December 19, 1979, by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and based in Los Angeles, California. Today, it is owned by beIN Media Group and Paramount Global.
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 period romantic comedy film directed by John Madden, written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, and produced by Harvey Weinstein. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck and Judi Dench. The film depicts a fictional love affair involving playwright William Shakespeare (Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (Paltrow) while Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet. Several characters are based on historical figures, and many of the characters, lines, and plot devices allude to Shakespeare's plays.
Joel Grey is an American actor, singer, dancer, photographer, and theatre director. He is best known for portraying the Master of Ceremonies in the musical Cabaret on Broadway and in Bob Fosse's 1972 film adaptation. He has won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award. He earned the Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 2023.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 American documentary film directed and written by, and starring filmmaker, director, political commentator and activist Michael Moore. The subjects of the film are the presidency of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and the media's coverage of the war. In the film, Moore states that American corporate media were cheerleaders for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and did not provide an accurate or objective analysis of the rationale for the war and the resulting casualties there.
Dimension Films was an American independent film and television production and distribution label founded in 1992, and currently owned by independent studio Lantern Entertainment. Formally one of the American "mini-majors", Dimension Films produced and released independent films and genre titles; specifically horror and science fiction films.
The Producers Guild of America (PGA) is a 501(c)(6) trade association representing the interests television producers, film producers and emerging media producers in the United States. The PGA's membership includes over 8,400 members of the producing establishment worldwide.
Harvey Weinstein is an American former film producer and convicted sex offender. In 1979, Weinstein and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films including Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989); The Crying Game (1992); Pulp Fiction (1994); Heavenly Creatures (1994); Flirting with Disaster (1996); and Shakespeare in Love (1998). Weinstein won an Academy Award for producing Shakespeare in Love and also won seven Tony Awards for plays and musicals including The Producers, Billy Elliot the Musical, and August: Osage County. After leaving Miramax, Weinstein and his brother Bob founded The Weinstein Company (TWC), a mini-major film studio. He was co-chairman, alongside Bob, from 2005 to 2017.
The Weinstein Company, LLC was an American independent film studio, founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein on March 10, 2005. TWC was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America as well as in the United States. However, the firing of Harvey Weinstein following allegations of sexual harassment and rape against him, as well as financial troubles that followed, led to the company's decline. The studio eventually declared bankruptcy in February 2018, with independent studio Lantern Entertainment acquiring a majority of its film library and assets. Co-founder and chief executive Bob Weinstein previously owned a small stake in the company.
All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 American Western film produced and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, and starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz. It premiered on December 25, 2000 to mostly negative reviews. It grossed $18 million worldwide on a $57 million budget.
The Drama League Awards, created in 1922, honor distinguished productions and performances both on Broadway and Off-Broadway, in addition to recognizing exemplary career achievements in theatre, musical theatre, and directing. Each May, the awards are presented by The Drama League at the Annual Awards Luncheon with performers, directors, producers, and Drama League members in attendance. The Drama League membership comprises the entire theater community, including award-winning actors, designers, directors, playwrights, producers, industry veterans, critics and theater-going audiences from across the U.S.
Scott Rudin is an American film, television and theatre producer. His films include the Academy Award-winning Best Picture No Country for Old Men, as well as Uncut Gems, Lady Bird, Fences, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, School of Rock, Zoolander, The Truman Show, Clueless, The Addams Family, and eight Wes Anderson films. On Broadway, he has won 17 Tony Awards for shows such as The Book of Mormon, Hello, Dolly!, The Humans, A View from the Bridge, Fences and Passion.
Eli Holzman is an American creator–developer, writer, producer and television executive. He is known for creating or serving as executive producer on a number of reality-based television series and documentaries, such as Project Runway, Project Greenlight, The Seven Five, Undercover Boss, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, Free Meek, Living Undocumented, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance.
Antiques Roadshow is an American television program broadcast on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Public television stations. The program features local antiques owners who bring in items to be appraised by experts. Provenance, history, and value of the items are discussed. Based on the original British Antiques Roadshow, which premiered in 1979, the American version first aired in 1997. When taping locations are decided, they are announced on the program's website raising the profile of various small to mid-size cities, such as Billings, Montana; Biloxi, Mississippi; Bismarck, North Dakota; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and Rapid City, South Dakota. Antiques Roadshow has been nominated 22 times for a Primetime Emmy.
Jason Ferus Blum is an American producer. He is founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, which has produced the horror franchises Paranormal Activity (2007–2021), Insidious (2010–2023), The Purge (2013–2021), and Halloween (2018–2022). Blum has also produced Sinister (2012), Oculus (2013), Whiplash (2014), The Gallows (2015), The Gift (2015), Hush (2016), Split (2016), Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016), Get Out (2017), Happy Death Day (2017), Upgrade (2018), Us (2019), The Invisible Man (2020), Freaky (2020), The Black Phone (2021), M3GAN (2022), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), and Speak No Evil (2024).
Meryl Poster is the president and founder of Superb Entertainment. Until October 2014, she was president of television at The Weinstein Company. Poster was previously the co-president of production for Miramax Films, where she executive produced the Academy Award-winning Chicago (2002) and Academy Award-nominated Cider House Rules (1999) and Chocolat (2000). She is an executive producer of the Bravo drama The Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, which premiered in December 2014.
In October 2017, The New York Times and The New Yorker reported that dozens of women had accused the American film producer Harvey Weinstein of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse over a period of at least 30 years. Over 80 women in the film industry eventually accused Weinstein of such acts. Weinstein himself denied "any non-consensual sex". Shortly after, he was dismissed from The Weinstein Company (TWC), expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and other professional associations, and retired from public view.
Jill Laura Sobel Messick was an American film producer. She worked as an executive producer on several films, including She's All That (1999), Frida (2002), and Mean Girls (2004).
She Said is a 2022 American drama film directed by Maria Schrader and written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, based on the 2019 book by reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. The film stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as Twohey and Kantor, respectively, and follows their New York Times investigation that exposed Harvey Weinstein's history of abuse and sexual misconduct against women. The film also stars Patricia Clarkson, Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, and Andre Braugher, in his final film role before his death in 2023. Ashley Judd appears as herself.
The 74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards honored the best in artistic and technical achievement in American prime time television programming from June 1, 2021, until May 31, 2022, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The awards were presented on September 3 and 4, 2022, at the Microsoft Theater in Downtown Los Angeles, California. A total of 99 Creative Arts Emmys were presented across 93 categories. The ceremonies were broadcast in the United States by FXX on September 10.