The headline to this Hollywood Reporter story is pure provocation: “Has ThinkFilm Lost Its Mind?” The three pages that follow offer little in the way of analysis of the sanity of the studio’s recent moves; instead, Alex Ben Block contrasts angry accusations from filmmakers who claim to have been wronged by the distributor, with defensive statements from Think/Capitol Films head David Bergstein.
The big takeaway (beyond Betstain’s annoying insistence that “he has image problems because nobody in Hollywood really knows him”) is his repeated claim that he’s not really concerned with the short term profits and losses associated with theatrical releases (which probably won’t sound like news to certain filmmakers he’s worked with over the past year). Instead, he’s got his eyes on building a digital rights library that can be leveraged when the current modes of distribution and consumption become extinct. “Our business plan is not so much about the movie business,” he told Block. “It’s really to build a global digital distribution business. It’s based on the expectation that in the not too distant future most content will be delivered digitally and on-demand.”
And apparently, he’s perfectly content enraging filmmakers and creditors today in order to come out ahead of the flop on a longer timeline. More details––including details on Bergstein’s future acquisitions plans, the status of David O. Russell’s beleaguered Think production, and testimony from apparently the only Think-associated filmmaker willing to come out and defend the company’s leader––after the jump.
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