Lunch without Anschutz

Business Week's L.A. bureau chief Ron Grover posted his latest Power Lunch column on the success of Ray and what it says about the Hollywood play of Phil Anschutz. His take is that Anschutz outgrew his early crusade to make G-rated fare with religious messages and is doing fine (depite losing a ton of money on the ill-conceived Around the World in 80 Days) with broader material:

It turned out that Anschutz was a big Ray Charles fan. He had been on the board of the Kennedy Center in 1987 when it gave the blind singer a lifetime achievement award. Anschutz agreed to front $3 million out of his own pocket to develop the project and then put up the entire $35 million when no studio would share the production costs.

"Phil consults with a lot of people, but at the end he liked Ray, and he made the decision to put his own money in," says David Weil, CEO of Anschutz Film Group, which is making family-oriented films with several studios. "It was inspirational, and Phil thinks we need inspirational films."

No, Grover did not become the first journalist in this century to get the elusive Anschutz on the record: "Anschutz, though a spokesman, declined comment for this column." The Anschutz-owned Washington Examiner began publication this month.