brad grey

Lengthy New Deal Requires Referral to Brad Grey as ‘Pope Ceo II’

7:45AM STV | Hooray! Brad Grey will be at Paramount at least as long as his immediate predecessors, with a reported new contract extending his leadership through 2014. More »

Hedge-Funders Take a Public Bath at Paramount

10:07AM STV | Today’s Hollywood Reporter points out “rare public evidence” of a looming crisis we first told you about seven months ago: Melrose I, hedge-fund financing that helped pay for a raft of underachieving Paramount films dating back to 2004, saw its investment grade plunge six notches recently in an assessment by Moody’s Investor Service. It was bad enough at the time for the money men to threaten Brad Grey with court — and even if the lawsuit never came, the day of reckoning did. More »

DreamWorks Remembers David Geffen as Loving, Studio-Shopping Father

5:22AM STV | A tender postmortem in today’s New York Times reminds the world yet again that seriously — like, really, this time — David Geffen is leaving DreamWorks. Having shepherded the monolith through the Hollywood establishment from conception to its first marriage (and divorce) before giving the frazzled bride away a second time in an arranged marriage to its dashing Indian suitor, Geffen’s tenure is remembered fondly by his ‘Works co-founders Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Not that they’ll admit to knowing what they’re doing without him. More »

Wall Street Meanies Harsh On Paramount’s Summer of Love

3:20AM Defamer Hollywood | For every blockbuster this summer with Paramount’s name attached — from Iron Man to Indy 4 to Kung Fu Panda — there’s been a looming crisis to greet it at the studio gate. The latest wake-up call comes from Deutsche Bank, from whom we’re learning the ‘Mount split recently after the the studio balked at the conditions of a $450 million financing deal. This follows word that unhappy Wall Streeters wanted free-spender Brad Grey’s head and that DreamWorks’ Indian-funded defection was imminent. Mix The Love Guru in just for fun, and it’s enough to almost make you forget Paramount is supposedly on a roll.

Sumner Redstone Apparently Finds Right Price to Forgive ‘Good Friend’ Tom Cruise

2:00AM Defamer Hollywood | The Tom Cruise Image Rehabilitation Tour rolls on today with a public pardon from Viacom kingpin Sumner Redstone, who followed his prodigal son’s subdued Oprah stint with a reassurance that, you know, all that erratic-behaviour outrage from a couple years back? Just kidding! And Mission: Impossible 4? It’s “up to Brad Grey.” Or, loosely translated, “Are we on number four? Already? Well, I’ll be“: More »

Paramount, Showtime, CBS Spend Weekend Fighting in Grandpa Sumner Redstone’s Sandbox of Death

7:00AM Defamer Hollywood | While most of us fled the office to enjoy early spring, Sumner Redstone spent another relaxing weekend watching his corporate children at Viacom gouge each others’ eyes out. And this time around he got his money’s worth, with Paramount finally breaking free from CBS/Showtime to start its own pay-cable and VOD service with MGM and Lionsgate. It’s an untidy, somewhat shocking scenario that we (and seemingly the rest of the Web) can’t yet make sense of, but join us after the jump to parse the winners and losers at a glance. More »

Exclusive: Brad Grey’s Next Court Battle Could Involve Investor Backlash

4:53AM Defamer Hollywood | While we’re generally for keeping all-around courtroom bore Brad Grey out of Hollywood’s legal spotlight in the future, a source tells Defamer that the Paramount boss and his Viacom overlords could face mutiny from hedge-funders unhappy with the way their studio investment is shaking out. Specifically, we hear the money men behind Melrose Partners — which joined the ‘Mount in 2004 under the Sherry Lansing/Jonathan Dolgen regime — may take legal action challenging the underperformance of its $231 million equity fund after Grey came aboard in early 2005. More »

Brad Grey Insists Under Oath That He Didn’t Want To Know How The Pellicano Sausage Was Made

8:08AM Seth | There was little that could have come from Brad Grey’s testimony at the Anthony Pellicano trial today that would have matched the sensationalism of the last bombshell to emerge from this ongoing saga of backdoor Hollywood intrigue–i.e., the Chris Rock: Accused Rapist tapes. Still, there was plenty of opportunity for another Moment, the diminutive studio emperor having a sizable axe to grind with Garry Shandling, who pulled no punches on the stand in a brutally frank testimony against his former manager. (It would surely have included some waterworks had the Larry Sanders Show star not years ago had his face pulled tighter than a conga drum, effectively sealing every one of his above-the-neck mucus membranes tighter than Tutankhamen’s tomb.) As it turns out, Grey did not use the opportunity to take some public jabs at his nemesis, instead delivering straightforward statements relieving himself of all knowledge of Pellicano’s shadowy surveillance methods: More »

This Is Garry Shandling’s Searing Indictment Of Former Manager Brad Grey. How Do You Like It So Far?

9:24AM Seth | If the old adage about the lawyer who represents himself having a fool for a client is true, then Anthony Pellicano’s cross-examination today of Garry Shandling at his own trial (Underwhelming Hollywood with Nothing of Juicy Significance Since 2002™) was like the Comedy Store main room. When asked by the court what he does for a living, Deadline Hollywood Daily reports, Shandling responded, “That’s a bad sign. I’m a comedian.” To which the judge responded, “Not to me you’re not.” (To which the entire jury snapped in unison and remarked, “Ooooooh girl.”) Shandling was there in connection with a long-running feud with onetime manager Brad Grey over lost earnings from his The Larry Sanders Show deal, during which Scary Hollywood Lawyer Bert Fields, a regular subscriber to Pellicano’s eavesdropping services, allegedly used the P.I. to tap Shandling’s calls. From DHD’s courtroom report: