DOGMA: TOO HOT FOR DISNEY

Acknowledging that they are acting to shield the Walt Disney Co. and chairman Michael Eisner from further criticism from religious activists, Miramax co-founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein said Wednesday that they are setting up a new company to handle the release of Kevin Smith's upcoming religious satire, Dogma (1999). The film has already drawn fire from such groups as the Catholic League. It also stirred up a hornet's nest on the Internet last August when costar Ben Affleck virulently accused Jeffrey Wells, a columnist for the Disney-owned Mr. Showbiz site, of distorting his comments about the movie at a news conference ("I've been had by the Tim McVeigh of the gay left and duped into playing a role in his imagined 'war' between Disney and some fringe religious group.") In an interview with today's (Thursday) Los Angeles Times, Harvey Weinstein said, "Disney is a target that's too vulnerable in a situation like this. They make family movies and a protest could hurt them unnecessarily." Today's New York Times described the situation as "an embarrassment for Miramax Films" and said that a top Disney executive who had seen the film had termed it "inappropriate for all of our labels." The NYT quoted Harvey Weinstein as saying that Miramax intends "to work with a distributor that shares our vision of the film." In a statement, director Smith praised the Weinsteins for being "willing to stick by us or back our goofy little flicks." He insisted that "Dogma is in no way blasphemous or worthy of the mild controversy that seems to be brewing around it."