Founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein on March 10, 2005, it was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America as well as in the United States.

[4] The company dismissed joint founder and chief executive Harvey Weinstein in October 2017, after over 100 women came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment, abuse, assault, and rape.

[5] On February 26, 2018, The Weinstein Company announced in a statement that it would declare bankruptcy following the collapse of a buyout deal with an investor group led by Maria Contreras-Sweet.

[33] On February 3, 2011, the Weinsteins extracted a $75 million consolation prize from their former parent company, Disney, thus improving their filmmaking careers.

As a result, Disney handed over its 50% stake in Project Runway, and reduced its share in four jointly owned films, including Scary Movie and Spy Kids, from 50% to 5%.

[citation needed] In August 2012 Mark Gooder, then CEO of the Mel Gibson-Bruce Davey company Icon Productions, was appointed president of acquisitions and Australian operations for TWC.

[40] On December 16, 2013, Miramax and TWC entered a 20-year joint-venture agreement to develop and produce films, television series, and stage shows.

Sequels to Rounders and Shakespeare in Love were among the films being developed under this new deal, and series based on Good Will Hunting and Flirting with Disaster were being planned as well.

Other developments included a Noah Hawley-written film titled The Alibi, and an adaptation of Liz Jensen's novel The 9th Life of Louis Drax, that late filmmakers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack intended to make.

Miramax would put up the financing and handle international sales while The Weinstein Company would develop the projects and distribute the titles domestically.

Harvey Weinstein also openly expressed interest in reacquiring Miramax and merging the film and television libraries of both companies when the latter went up for sale in July.

[47][48][49][50][51][52] On February 23, 2016, TWC decided to put its film library of 520 titles as well as a majority stake in its television division up for sale,[53] and later signed investment banks Moelis & Company and Thomas Dey's ACF Investment Bank to handle the television sale (which was resumed nine months after the failed talks with ITV) by looking for strategic investors.

[55][56] On June 21, 2016, James L. Dolan exited TWC's board of directors and was replaced by hedge fund billionaire and Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry.

When Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of TWC, was explaining the origin of the name of Mizchief, he said that it was based on how one of his kids pronounced the word, "Mischief".

[69] Bob Weinstein stated on October 13 that media reports that his brother's sexual misconduct scandal had forced the company to explore either a sale or shutting down operations were inaccurate.

[76] Reuters reported on October 16, 2017 that TWC had entered talks with private equity firm Colony Capital for the sale of its assets.

[78] Other persons and companies that had expressed interest in acquiring TWC included rapper Jay-Z,[79] Yucaipa Companies, Viacom, Lionsgate (the current home video distributor of TWC and Miramax which ended up buying a 20% stake of Spyglass Media Group in July 2021 including The Weinstein Company films), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (the former U.S theatrical distributor of TWC),[80] A&E Networks,[81] Administrator of the Small Business Administration Maria Contreras-Sweet, Killer Content, Shamrock Holdings, Vine Alternative Investments, Anchorage Capital Group, MSD Capital, beIN Media Group (the current owner of Miramax), Sony Pictures Television, and Versa.

[90] In order to raise funds, TWC has sold the rights to three of its films, Paddington 2,[91] In the Heights, and The Six Billion Dollar Man, to Warner Bros.

As of February 2018, several companies had sued TWC, including American Express ($1.4 million),[94] chocolatier Lindt & Sprüngli ($133,333),[95] and Canadian film distributor Entertainment One ($7.2 million for Paddington 2),[96] On March 20, 2018, shortly after the studio filed for Chapter 11 protection, the Bankruptcy Court in Delaware published a 394-page list of creditors owed money from TWC; including the estate of rock musician David Bowie, film director Michael Bay, and former First Daughter of the United States Malia Obama.

[104] On July 9, 2018, several actors, directors, producers and writers protested Lantern's acquisition, asking a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge not to approve the purchase price for TWC's assets without first extracting a guarantee of payment to the creditors who are still owed money by the studio.

[108] As of July 11, 2018, Netflix terminated its output contract with The Weinstein Company and would no longer accept deliveries or make payments to the studio.

This affected the release schedule for the third season of the MTV series Scream (produced by Dimension Television, and billed as a Netflix Original internationally).

[112] On July 15, 2019, Spyglass settled two major claims, including $11 million for Viacom regarding the television series Scream and the film Sin City 2 (which Lantern did not acquire).

In the lawsuit, the company and both Weinsteins were accused of violating civil rights and gender discrimination laws, stating that it had "repeatedly and persistently treated female employees less well than male-employees through gender-based hostile workplace harassment, quid pro quo harassment, and discrimination" by maintaining "a group of female employees whose primary job it was to accompany HW (sic) to events and to facilitate HW's sexual conquests".

In addition, the lawsuit includes information that the company's Chief Operating Officer communicated with the Human Resources Director about complaints where settlements and non-disclosure agreements were needed, with the H.R.

Director not being involved in any investigation or resolution process "on more than one occasion", and details on verbal abuse and threats by Harvey Weinstein that he would (in substance) kill employees, directly or indirectly via claims that he "had connections to the Secret Service who could solve problems for him".

[117] In filing the lawsuit, Schneiderman sought to force the company to address several points: to give up non-disclosure agreements with past employees, provide better protection for employees "who would be reporting to some of the same managers"[117] since most of the existing senior managers would remain in place, including David Glasser, current COO of the company, and insufficient funds to compensate alleged victims that would file suits.

The investment group is said to meet with the Attorney General's office within a few days, with the decision whether to continue or abandon the bid for the company on hold until then.

[119][120] Glasser filed a counter-suit on February 20 against the company and remaining board members, stating that no reasons other than "for cause" were given for the firing, which was described as "nothing more than a desperate attempt to deflect attention away from the very people who were empowered to halt Harvey Weinstein's abusive behavior".

On November 13, 2018, Lantern acquired full control of three Quentin Tarantino films, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, originally released by The Weinstein Company, for $6.1 million.