InSolvEnt: Winick Shutting Down Indie Shingle

Director and ex-InDigEnt kingpin Gary Winick at Sunday's premiere (Photo: STV)

You know, it's funny: All that time I spent at the Charlotte's Web premiere talking with Gary Winick about bouncing between the big-budget studio world and his microbudget NYC shingle InDigEnt, it never really occurred to me to ask if he was actually still in business. That'll teach me:

In an interview on Sunday, Winick said directing his upcoming major-studio release, Charlotte's Web, took 2 1/2 years and diverted his attention away from InDigEnt, which made headlines at 2002's Sundance Film Festival with movies like Tadpole and Personal Velocity.

"I couldn't keep it together. As of January we're biting the dust after six years," Winick told reporters.

"I kind of think we had our moment in time. Unfortunately there is no million-dollar film any more that actually gets in the market place and makes some money because the studios want the Capotes and the Sideways ... they want the $8-million film to make a $100 million instead of the $1-million to make $10 (million). That's the problem," he said.

Now, maybe I'm a little green, but that doesn't quite jibe with what he told me a couple of hours after that in Chelsea:

"Soderbergh does it, Linklater does it -- I'm following good people," he said. "I have these stories I wanna tell, and they're usually human stories. So if that inspires a big movie or a small movie, I just am passionate about telling it. And hopefully I do a good job so I can work again."

The connections don't hurt either. "What it does is it gives me a little bit of stature and access to people I wouldn't normally be able to have," Winick said. "And when you approach them, they're just so glad to actually do something small. It's kind of neat."

So small, in fact, that it doesn't exist. As a friend told me recently, "On an InDigEnt film, you don't need a focus puller -- you need a camera." And perhaps a publicist, but enough already; I'm loathe to speak ill of the dead.

Posted at December 6, 2006 12:18 PM