Word: geffen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Gates has invested in a variety of speculative alliances: with Hollywood's DreamWorks troika (Spielberg, Katzenberg, Geffen) to make interactive entertainment products; with cable giant Tele-Communications Inc., to build interactive TV systems; with cellular-telephone pioneer Craig McCaw's Teledesic Corp., to build a network of low-flying telecommunications satellites...
...lately been involved in its own corporate melodrama. In 1990 Matsushita bought the company in a $6.6 billion deal arranged by the movie Mephisto, Michael Ovitz, chief of Creative Artists Agency. Profits were plentiful, thanks to a flourishing music division, helped by acquiring David Geffen's record holdings, and a folio of hit films, most of them produced by Steven Spielberg. And at first, Japanese-American relations were smooth. Then some of the Matsushita executives who were on good terms with MCA president Sidney J. Sheinberg were fired. Says MCA movie chief Tom Pollock: "I believe if the Matsushita administration...
When Spielberg formed DreamWorks with Geffen and former Disney movie czar Jeffrey Katzenberg, he realized both his value to MCA (he had kept Universal profitable with such hits as E.T., Back to the Future and Jurassic Park) and his personal debt to Sheinberg, whom he calls a mentor. So DreamWorks said some of its products could be distributed by MCA-in a deal that could be worth $1 billion over the next decade-if Matsushita would keep Sheinberg and chairman Lew Wasserman aboard. The Japanese never responded to the offer...
Your article focused on the true spirit of what men of resources, like David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, are attempting to do and can do [BUSINESS, March 27]. They have a vision that is directed by the energy of hoping and the solace of dreams. They are determined to please those who must write the checks, but intend to stay in control of the helm...
...similar to what happened when Katzenberg dramatically departed from the Walt Disney Co. One important difference is that the trio will be competing with other entertainment firms in Hollywood. These companies have been in business long enough to know the environment well. However, the director (Spielberg), the musician (Geffen) and the animator (Katzenberg) will not realize the threat that other companies pose until they are fully operational. The three will go their separate ways after establishing DreamWorks. But for now Hollywood is at the mercy of three men, each of whom is having a mid-life crisis...