ABSTRACT
In June of 1999 MGM reconstituted United Artists Films as its specialty division in an effort to diversify its slate, an approach not undertaken by the studio since the heyday of United Artists Classics between 1980 and 1986. UA Films operated with a skeleton staff until MGM chairman and CEO Chris McGurk lured Bingham Ray, the charismatic co-founder of October Films, to be its president in September 2001. Ray was drawn to the filmmaker-friendly history of United Artists, while McGurk saw Ray as someone who could raise the profile of the label, thereby elevating the prestige of its chronically troubled parent company. In each of its principal release slates, United Artists Films scored at least one genuine theatrical success that multiplied ancillary revenue, but more often released films with limited theatrical payoff that relied on critics’ praise and awards to generate profits downstream. With fewer theatrical hits and a greater reliance on ancillary revenue to produce profits, United Artists Films struggled to compete with ‘Indiewood’ specialty box office leaders Miramax, Fox Searchlight, and Focus Features. The clash between the commercial goals of the parent company, the old-school independent cinema practices of the subsidiary, and the realities of the marketplace resulted in an intriguing, if unstable, experiment that tested the willingness of a major studio to support traditional specialty cinema—especially with the threat of the studio’s sale ever looming.
