WEINSTEINS DRINK WELLSPRING DRY

Wellspring, the indie distributor with the chequered past and CAFE LUMIERE on its schedule, was just gobbled up by the Weinstein Company. TWC just signed a deal to handle any theatrical releases of Wellspring titles, and Wellspring let 10 people go, including their head of acquisitions. Wellspring will be saving $1 million in overhead each year, thanks to this deal and it'll be moving its operations to Santa Monica, where its owner, Genius LLC, resides.

This is part of a complicated shell game between TWC and Genius LLC in which Genius became the exclusive US distributor of TWC video, and TWC assumed 70% ownership of Genius LLC (to be renamed Genius Products LLC).

The "What You Talking 'bout, Willis?" Award for Corporate Gobbeldygook this week goes to Trevor Drinkwater, head of Genius LLC.

"This realignment supports an aggressive acquisition campaign to build on the Wellspring brand with critically acclaimed films that celebrate intelligent cinema, while at the same time supporting our strategy of leveraging our core competency by focusing on the sales and distribution of higher-margin, packaged entertainment products at retail."

Poetic and confusing.

(Thanks to a sharp-eyed reader who sent this in)