“Some people know Philip Anschutz, co-founder of Qwest Communications International Inc., as a hard-charging financier who has amassed a $5 billion fortune in oil, railroads and telecommunications,” but as Financier Bets Big On Risky Venture: Family Values explains, Anschutz has moved into family films:
In the last few years, he has stormed into Hollywood, bankrolling nearly a dozen projects at once. These films are meant to be uplifting and family-friendly, earning G and PG ratings, even as movie theaters are packed with darker, R-rated fare. The 64-year-old Mr. Anschutz has committed more than $300 million to film projects already. It’s unlikely he will break even on many of them. But he shows no signs of stopping.
Disney picked up his latest film after Paramount refused to distribute it:
He has financed a $110 million remake of the 1956 movie “Around the World in 80 Days,” which he enjoyed as a youth growing up in central Kansas. [...] The movie may benefit from a lucky casting decision: Arnold Schwarzenegger has a cameo role as a Turkish prince, filmed shortly before he began his successful campaign to become California governor.
This should surprise no one:
Succeeding in the family-film market is tricky, especially for a newcomer. Just this week, Mr. Anschutz announced he was dismantling one of his two production companies, Crusader Entertainment. He had created the company in 2000 to make films free of violence, sex, drugs, tobacco and profanity, but few of its films made money.
Does he know who Hunter S. Thompson is?
On a wall in his Denver headquarters is a plaque, with a quote from writer Hunter S. Thompson, calling the film business “a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side.”
You’ve heard the pitch: It’s Lord of the Rings meets Passion of the Christ — with talking animals!
He and Disney have paired up to develop C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books into a series of movies, starting with a $150 million version of “The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe” for Christmas 2005.
Does he know who Truman Capote was?
For most of its 3? years in business, Crusader struggled to find its way. At one point, the company spent $8 million to film “Children on Their Birthdays,” a Truman Capote short story with so little public appeal that the finished movie rang up only $54,000 in ticket sales before disappearing from first-run distribution.
Does he know who Ayn Rand was?
For a brief time, Messrs. Anschutz and Baldwin were excited about the prospect of filming Ayn Rand’s epic novel “Atlas Shrugged.” They snapped up the movie rights for more than $200,000 in 2003, only to discover that the 1,075-page book’s sprawling nature, long speeches and many subplots made it an extremely problematic film project. Anschutz insiders say it’s an open question whether they will press on.