uta
UTA Riles Some With Its ‘Black Boy Chained To Monkey’ Lobby Portrait
4:20AM Seth | Nikki Finke ran a story yesterday about a controversial portrait hung in UTA’s new 4th floor gallery. The project is the brainchild of partner Jeremy Zimmer—whom, she points out, has courted controversy before, back in the days when he’d ignore “the complaints of women…when he used to urinate out the window of UTA’s old offices.” (Is that an issue? We’ve never heard a peep out of the smog-test facility guys beneath Defamer HQ.) The photograph in question, “Dayaba Usman With The Monkey Clear, Nigeria 2005″ (pictured above), was taken by a South African photographer of some renown, Pieter Hugo. Some staffers were offended, and demanded it come down: More »
Achieve Your Dream Of Picking Up Some Asshole’s Dog’s Dry Cleaning Via The UTA Job List Blog
8:32AM Seth | For many just starting out in Hollywood, the journey begins somewhat inauspiciously at the UTA job list: It’s a precious catalog of the latest assistant openings, hand-lettered on babyskin parchment scrolls, sealed in scarlet wax pressed in the agency’s pregnancy-test-reminiscent logo, and handed off at twilight between cloaked agency footmen on foggy stretches of Pico Blvd. But you’re in luck, because now it’s also a blog! Let’s see what the assistant-needy are looking for today: More »
End-Of-Monday Tallies Put ‘Racer’ At Third, UTA Minus One Emile Hirsch
10:10AM Seth | It seems as if our reconnaissance on Speed Racer—quickly shaping up to be one of the biggest turkeys in recent Hollywood history—proved correct: The film was indeed third at the box office this weekend, taking in $18.6 million, $1.6 million short of the bloated studio estimates released yesterday. (What Happens in Vegas actually $200k more than its $2 million estimate.) And there’s more Racer roadkill: More »
Screenwriter Agency-Hopscotch For Visual Learners
4:25AM Seth | Were you, like us, rendered an incapacitated, drooling mess after trying to slog through Variety’s report on the agency-defection madness currently gripping the screenwriting trade? Perhaps you are simply a visual learner, in which case we’ve drafted for you a handy pictorial guide to the recent comings and goings of the Bedhopping Six. (We managed to find photos of all them, save the Google Image-shy husband-wife team of Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, the National Treasure writers instead represented by Nicolas Cage wielding a torch inside Mt. Rushmore’s Teddy Roosevelt nostril.) More »
All Grown-Up Miley Cyrus Goes Agency Hopping to UTA
4:30AM Defamer Hollywood | Congratulations to the gang at United Talent Agency, who last weekend offset a series of high-profile defections with the addition of Mitchell Gossett — the Agent to the Child Stars who brings along top client and recent teenagers-fucking firebrand Miley Cyrus. Nikki Finke had the news Saturday, reporting that Billy Ray Cyrus would be tagging along out of Gossett’s former headquarters at Cunningham Escott Slevin Doherty, sort of a halfway house for transitioning young talent (and, evidently, their middling parents). Finke notes that it’s anyone’s guess how Miley’s Vanity Fair bedsheet-rocking played into the deal, but the timing seems clear enough to us. More »
Doom-and-Gloom ‘LAT’ Surveys Scenes From the Post-Apocalyptic Agency Landscape
5:50AM Defamer Hollywood | Seeing as the L.A. Times wouldn’t rush any story it couldn’t retract in disgrace a few weeks later, John Horn took his sweet time pounding out today’s analysis of all the dramatic agency-hopping exploits over the last week-and-a-half. There’s a little bit of a long view, here, however, and it’s decidedly ugly; for starters, could industry volatility force CAA reps to endure the horrors of — gulp — business class? Or worse? More »
Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Rest of UTA Comedy Mafia in Play as Nick Stevens off to Endeavor
2:00AM Defamer Hollywood | The Hollywood Reporter calls it “one of the biggest agent migrations in years.” Nikki Finke screamed “Shocker!” We’ll wait until the dust settles before determining exactly how to characterize the moves of UTA talent kingpin and co-owner Nick Stevens and partners Sharon Sheinwold and Lisa Hallerman over to Endeavor, a relocation that has already cost UTA its relationship with Stevens’ client Ben Stiller, looks ready to claim Jack Black and could continue to draw a sizable chunk of UTA’s deep comedy base — including Judd Apatow, Owen Wilson, Jason Lee and half the cast of Saturday Night Live — in the days and weeks to come. More »
Why Did Vince Vaughn Phone-Dump His Reps?
8:05AM Seth | If you’re the average superstar, surrounding yourself with a dream-team of handlers is probably the single most important decision you’ll make: Any weak link in the commission-claiming chain can result in the kinds of career missteps that result in disastrous tumbles down the Hollywood food chain, where you’ll soon find yourself groveling for any elephant-voicing breadcrumbs the studios are still willing to toss your way. (Needless to say, with plenty of strings attached). Vince Vaughn knows this all too well, and he’s reportedly disposed of his entire team in one phoned-in management massacre. From the Deadline Hollywood Daily exclusive: More »
