Qatari Giant BeIN Shopping Major Miramax Stake (Report)

The legendary film company was originally bought by BeIN in 2016.

A major stake in the Weinstein-founded film banner Miramax is reportedly up for sale.

Its current owner, the Qatar-based BeIN Media Group, is shopping a stake of up to 50 percent of the famed Shakespeare in Love production house, reports The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources. It adds that the sellers are seeking a deal that would value the company at $650 million.

BeIN, which was originally spun out of TV giant Al Jazeera and whose interests mostly lie in global sports distribution, purchased Miramax and its valuable library of more than 700 films for an undisclosed sum from Colony Capital and the Qatar Investment Authority in 2016.

The legendary independent film company, which was founded in 1979 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and built its reputation with films like Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Crying Game and Pulp Fiction, was acquired by the Walt Disney Co. in 1993. The Weinsteins themselves left the company in 2005, and in 2010, it was sold for $660 million to an investment group that included Colony Capital and the Qatar Investment Authority.

Recent Miramax films include last year's Halloween return, Bad Santa 2 and Bridget Jones' Baby, while it has Guy Ritchie's British crime caper The Gentleman coming up.