Shari Redstone’s $30 Billion TriumphBelittled by Viacom and CBS executives, mocked by journalists, and insulted by her own father, the 62-year-old heiress now sits atop a media empire.
At Winter Antiques Show, Shari Redstone Answers Meryl Streep’s CallMeryl Streep threw down a gauntlet to movie-theater owners at the Golden Globes Sunday, challenging them to make more space for independent films. At the opening-night party for the Winter Antiques Show at the Seventh Regiment Armory last night, event chair Shari Redstone — Sumner’s daughter and president of the family’s National Amusements, a 1,500-screen theater chain — picked it up. Streep had urged viewers to demand that theaters show more art-house films, citing Pan’s Labyrinth as an example of a good movie people can’t access as easily as her own The Devil Wears Prada. The actress had “a very good point,” Redstone said. In 2007, she promised, National Amusements will “devote more screens on a regular basis to independent films.” There are some “good movies that aren’t as successful as they should be,” Redstone said at the packed antiques event, and chains with eighteen-screen theaters have space to show them. But studios have to step up, too, she said. “They have to market more aggressively, they have to build momentum for these movies.” Speaking of studios, what movies does Redstone think will fare well at the Oscars? “Babel and Dreamgirls,” she said, naming two films from Viacom-owned Paramount. A coincidence, no doubt. —Alexandra Peers
