Judging by the glowing reviews and its long stay at Ritz Five, we woulda thunk Ryan Gosling’s Harvey-esque Lars And The Real Girl was doing pretty well for itself. Not so, says the New York Times. In fact, it’s just one in a string of recent flops by apparel magnate, mega-philanthropist and Kimmel Center namesake Sidney Kimmel (looking eerily Trump-ish at right), who’s been dabbling in film production since 1986’s one-two punch of Nine 1/2 Weeks and The Clan of the Cave Bear. The Times cites Talk to Me and Death at a Funeral as commercial failures too, which brings us to Kimmel’s latest ventures, the sure-to-be-more-robust adaptation of that zillion-selling pageturner The Kite Runner (opening now-ish), and even radder, the directorial debut of one Charlie Kaufman. What follows is a bit inside baseball for everyone except film geeks, but the writer basically asserts that Kimmel has been blowing his money on underperforming movies and employees, despite some glitzy projects on the horizon.

How much Mr. Kimmel has sunk into its films is unclear. A producer who has worked with his company estimated its red ink as perhaps $30 million, judging from box office results, but Mr. Kimmel declined to comment, saying it was his own money, after all. (He does have one outside investor: Bruce Toll, a friend from Philadelphia and co-founder of the Toll Brothers home building giant.)

Dude doesn’t seem too worried:

Mr. Kimmel professed to be unconcerned with leaving his mark on Hollywood the way he has on the garment industry, cancer research, the arts and Philadelphia. “How many legacies do you need?” he said. “I’m here to enjoy myself.”

Word. And seriously, how can we not love anyone who’s bankrolling a movie about Phillip Seymour Hoffman building a miniature New York City? What’s money even for if you can’t keep the Charlie Kaufmans of the world in notepads and Oscars? Bravo, we say. Bravo.
NYT: The Producer
Related: Sidney Kimmel on IMDB

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 2:38 pm.