The directors: Franc Roddam on Harvey Weinstein

In our continuing series of articles in collaboration with Direct, the magazine of the Directors Guild of Great Britain guest edited by filmmaker Don Boyd, Franc Roddam, the director of ’Quadrophenia‘, recalls working with Harvey Weinstein on his 1992 film ’K2‘

Harvey Weinstein and I had started off well: he distributed ‘Aria’, a film for which ten directors, including Robert Altman and Godard had each filmed a segment. Harvey had liked my segment, and I liked him. I even did some script doctoring for him. I was doing the final mix of ‘K2’ when I got a call from him. He was still a fledgling distributor and hungry for product.

‘Franc.’
‘Harvey…’
‘I’ve heard “K2” is fantastic. Should I buy it?’
I told him that he should. Now here’s the catch: Harvey didn’t have the muscle he has now, this was before the Disney deal [Disney acquired Miramax in 1993]. My producer and his agent from CAA said that Miramax could have the film but it was $4 million for the US rights, plus they had to guarantee a $2 million media spend. To make it worse, he had to buy the film unseen. He had 24 hours .

‘Should I buy it, Franc?’
‘Yeah, of course man, it’s fantastic.’

My fate was sealed. He bought it unseen for $2 million upfront, with $4 million to follow on release. Some people unkindly said that he didn’t have the rest of the cash and had delayed the film until it came through. Some people said his brother Bob was angry because he’d committed $6 million without consultation. Or maybe he just expected something else. Anyway, here we were, ten months later, completely fucked.
I called Harvey’s office in New York.
‘Mr Weinstein is in Los Angeles.’

I slammed the phone down, my eyes stinging from the Valley pollution. I was back in. I was on a roll, Harvey always stays at The Beverly Hills Hotel. I was determined to get to him and persuade him out of the ridiculous edits.

I’d noticed that the American distributors didn’t like nuance. It smacked too much of a director’s taste. They didn’t want films to breathe or meander. Fearful of the audience’s ability to hold concentration, they wanted a movie to be tight. After the reception at Cannes and a night on the tiles celebrating how, for a meagre $12 million budget, we had pulled off one of the physically most dangerous films ever made [Roddam filmed much of ‘K2’ in the mountains of Pakistan], I was summoned to meet Harvey.