by Mitchell Fink
For the first time in its 20-year history, Miramax Films is backing a Broadway play. The company has agreed to co-finance the Tom Stoppard revival The Real Thing, which opens a 20-week limited engagement on the Great White Way on April 17.
Stoppard, you'll recall, was the co-writer of Miramax' enormously successful Academy Award winner Shakespeare in Love, so his relationship with company honcho Harvey Weinstein is nothing if not strong.
"I am pleased to be teaming up again with Harvey, a long-standing admirer of my play," Stoppard said.
The Real Thing, a humorous play within a play about marriage and pop culture, currently is running in London. The plan, according to Miramax reps, is for the London co-stars Stephen Dillane and Jennifer Ehle to come to New York when the play closes there March 18.
Miramax and Universal already co-own the film rights to The Real Thing. This co-venture with producers Anita Waxman, Elizabeth Williams and Ron Kastner could be the first of a number of Broadway shows for Miramax. Another project that Weinstein has his eye on for Broadway is a musical adaptation of Cinema Paradiso.
As for Weinstein himself, he is said to be feeling "fantastic," to quote someone at Miramax, and is expected back at work soon following what must have been a major ordeal fighting off a bacterial infection.
I asked a Miramax rep whether it was safe to pencil in Weinstein as a definite for the March 26 Oscars in Los Angeles. "Count on it," he replied.
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