michael ovitz
People
Ari Emanuel Will Rule Hollywood As Its New Jesus
5:30PM the cajun boy | Superagent Ari Emanuel, brother of Rahm, has been getting lots of glowing press lately. Remember when the New York Times genuflected at his altar on their front page? Now The Independent is breathlessly touting his plans to single-handedly reinvent Hollywood. More »
9:20AM STV | Nicita Has Left the Building: Not a day too soon, it appears, 42-year agency veteran and CAA partner Rick Nicita is ditching his Death Star digs for the co-chairman spot at Morgan Creek. Nicita joins a distinguished list of CAA defectors to studio front offices, led by Michael Ovitz’s spectacular Disney flame job and Ron Meyer’s decidedly improved turn heading up Universal. The latter studio’s distribution partnership with Morgan Creek will come in handy for Nicita, who will be charged with restoring the Creek to its late-’80s/early-’90s golden years after a string of recent underachievers including The Good Shepherd and Man of the Year. We admit we’re a little surprised; at a time when most of his old CAA contemporaries are slowing down and/or testifying in federal court, Nicita’s move is that of a man with something to prove — most likely with wife Paula Wagner and client Tom Cruise looking on studiously from their own perches at UA. That’s just the kind of mensch he is. Good luck, Rick! [LAT, Photo Credit: Getty Images] More »
New Day For Endeavor Kind Of Like the Old Days, Minus the Conference-Room Orgies
2:30AM STV | A sweeping profile of Endeavor hit The NY Times on Sunday, placing the agency’s arduous climb to power in a welcome new perspective. By virtually all accounts, ETA has “grown up” — from a puckish, oversexed boys club to a puckish, oversexed employer of Jodie Foster’s rumoured lesbian paramour (and more than a half-dozen female partners, up from zero just a few years ago). But despite all Ari Emanuel’s progressive brio, he still can’t outrun CAA or his own choppy past — Michael Ovitz gets a fun body-blow in by the eighth paragraph, Ari not-so-strenuously deflects those nagging sale and/or merger rumours, and, for those who missed it, there’s a recap of Endeavor’s somewhat experimental sexual/ethnic chemistry: More »
Tears, Sneers Ensue as Anita Busch Faces Pellicano’s Third Degree
4:10AM Defamer Hollywood | All kinds of drama unfolded Wednesday in one of the more turbulent days of the Anthony Pellicano trial, with ex-journalist Anita Busch following fork-tongued Michael Ovitz to a slow death on the witness stand. As if you had to ask, the cross-examination showdown between Busch and Pellicano — whom the writer all but accused in court of infamously harrassing her out of writing articles about Ovitz after joining the LA Times — did not go smoothly: More »
