The Hidden

The assimilation of youth culture, for purposes of advertising, through its music, mores and icons is certainly nothing new. A recent Harper's article by Baffler editor Thomas Frank, whose book The Conquest of Cool presents a postmortem of this phenomenon as it pertains to the '60s, profiles a somewhat arcane, postmodern offshoot of corporate advertising called account planning, quickly gaining a foothold along Madison Avenue, whose rather evangelical premise is that consumers will express an almost grateful brand loyalty to those marketeers clever enough to seek out and address their lifestyle directly. The primary example given is Nike, which transformed itself from Michael Moore­tracked, Doonesbury-tweaked Third World dungeonmaster to skateboard-friendly champion of the outré and disenfranchised for the price of a few well-placed T-shirts. Artisan denies knowledge of the account-planning cult, but its stated goals are remarkably similar.

Still, the primary similarity to Miramax may be that like the celebrated Weinstein brothers, Artisan's toppers -- fellow presidents Amir Malin, long involved in ancillary markets and video deals, and Bill Block, formerly an agent with his own InterTalent and later ICM -- at least in their choice of releases, exercise what looks suspiciously like personal taste. In the upcoming months, they will release Steven Soderbergh's The Limey, after Out of Sight was a much-lamented disappointment for Universal, and Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey, after The Sweet Hereafter's cumulative gross plus one thin quarter would almost cover the price of a cup of coffee. They will re-release Gregory Nava's El Norte; have commissioned The Usual Suspects screenwriter Chris McQuarrie's directorial debut, the ultraviolent Way of the Gun; and have financed Roman Polanski's biggest-budget film in two decades, The Ninth Gate.

"Part of the responsibility of what we feel is we sometimes have to let those films out there," says Malin. "Now, Bill and I can't do that day in and day out. But whereas other people at other companies may look at it as more of a widget business, that's where we differentiate ourselves.

"This may sound cocky," he adds, "but Ghost Dogwill be by far Jim Jarmusch's highest-grossing film ever."