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During the past 20 years, the author has watch China move from being a developing country into an industrial superpower
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Dave McClure's traveling venture capital show scours the world for promising startups
Get Four
|  | MARCH 2, 2006
Is Little Lionsgate Set To Roar?An Oscar upset for Crash could make a powerhouse out of the independent film studioSitting in Toronto's faded Elgin Theater in 2004, Tom Ortenberg felt the heat. The president of tiny Lionsgate's (LGF ) film studio, Ortenberg was among the Hollywood heavies taking in the racially charged film Crash at the Toronto film festival -- and bid $3.3 million on the spot for its U.S. rights. "No one else seemed to want it," he recalls. Too bad for them. Crash went on to become a bargain-basement hit, generating an estimated $65 million in revenues and $30 million in earnings for Lionsgate. On Mar. 5, Lionsgate may get its Miramax Moment, that magic time when a smaller, artier house gets to strut at the expense of the big studios before the Academy Awards' global TV audience. Nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Crash is drawing some last-minute attention as a challenger to gay cowboy flick Brokeback Mountain. A Crash upset could vault Lionsgate beyond its status as king of the niches into a powerhouse independent studio. Even if it doesn't grab the Oscar, Lionsgate still will have plenty to roar about. Last week, it opened the flick Medea's Family Reunion, an comedy starring Tyler Perry that grossed $30 million in its first weekend, making it the top flick of the weekend. Made for $10 million, it will likely be a huge hit for Lionsgate, which financed half the costs. It's a follow up for Perry's first flick, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which ended up grossing $50.4 million. Together with Lionsgate's rich library -- which includesDirty Dancing, Reservoir Dogs, and Terminator 2 -- a big Oscar night could also make the studio an acquisition target for media companies beefing up content in a world of downloads and movies-on-demand. So says analyst Robert Routh of Jefferies & Co. (JEF ), who follows the stock and owns shares. He figures everyone from Comcast (CMCSA ) to Walt Disney (DIS ), which recently lost the services of Miramax's brothers Weinstein, could use a studio whose lower-budget films cut through the clutter. Lionsgate says it is not considering a sale. But top execs Michael Burns and Jon Feltheimer spent $4 million on the Oscar campaign, sending Crash DVDs to all 130,000 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) members, even though only about 1,400 are Academy members. That won a surprise best-picture award from SAG, and pre-Oscar momentum. Who knows? Maybe Lionsgate will grab gold beyond that 8 1/2-lb. statue.  By Ronald Grover Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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