Responding to Commenters' Questions

Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of the Weinstein Company and co-founder of Miramax Films, is involved in movies, television, and every other facet of the entertainment business. Today, though, he's a blogger, and you can only read him on Portfolio.com.

When I gave a speech at a dinner for WWD a few months ago, my brother Bob declared it a sign of the "impending apocalypse." If he thought a boy from Queens discussing haute couture was amusing, I can't wait to hear his reaction about my day today as a blogger. The apocalypse or not, it was a great experience and I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss some important issues that I have tried to dedicate my career to - creating powerful and engaging independent films, helping to bring some daring shows to Broadway and fighting for some of our country's most courageous politicians. So before we end and call it a day, I would like to share my final post.

When Bob and I first decided to try and bring art-house and foreign films to mainstream theaters, we knew we were going to have to come up with some fresh and innovative marketing techniques to convince people that a film like Cinema Paradiso could be as accessible and enjoyable as a film like E.T. We quickly learned that one way to get people into the seats was by making them feel a part of the film - whether that meant encouraging everyone to do their part and keep the shocking secret in The Crying Game or more recently holding a contest with MySpace to give fans a chance to appear in the credits of Clerks II. So with that in mind, I just wanted to engage some of our readers and address some of the questions and comments that came through.

HearMeHarvey (did you create that handle just for today?) asked: "what's the difference between the financial risk and payoff between investing in movies and theater? From the outside looking in, it seems that putting your money into a Broadway show is about the riskiest investment around. A show like Billy Elliott seems like a safe bet, but would you put money into an unknown piece of theater?"

The answer is absolutely and that is an approach we have taken with our films and our stage productions. For example, when we started making Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were virtually unknown but their passion, commitment and dedication to bringing their story to the screen made it a bet worth taking. And a lot of times projects that may seem inevitable after they come out, are anything but when you are trying to get them off the ground. The important thing to remember is this: in order to take creative risks, you have to make smart business decisions. That is why we often pre-sell the foreign or TV rights on our films and have established distribution partnerships across the world.

Another reader discussed how their "viewing habits have evolved" and said that "for smaller movies, I'm much more inclined to wait until they come out on DVD or on cable." I am sure that many people out there feel exactly the same way and it is a growing trend that we in the movie industry have to grapple with. But rather seeing it as a threat, we should view it as a unique opportunity to both create more exciting films and devise innovative ways to reach our consumers. On the film front, we released Michael Moore's SiCKO which helped inspire a debate about health-care in our country. While it was a small film, it energized its audiences and people felt motivated to see it in theaters and become part of something special. As a result, it became the third highest grossing documentary of all time. And for technology giving us new ways to reach audiences, we signed an exclusive partnership with Blockbuster where members can rent our movies online and return them in stores, giving them "total access" to our entire library.

That is all for today. And I want to thank Portfolio.com for this great opportunity.