Word: ovitz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Last week Eisner was a very happy man. A fortnight after springing word of the Walt Disney Co.'s $19 billion acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC, he announced that Michael Ovitz had agreed to leave his post as mega-boss of Creative Artists Agency and join the Mouse conglomerate as president, effective Oct. 1. In June, Ovitz, a.k.a. Hollywood's Most Powerful Man, had passed up a $250 million offer to run MCA. So the news that he would be Eisner's-or anyone's-No. 2 left observers giddy with admiration. "Disney now is not only the world's biggest...
...Paramount to Disney, and Frank Wells from Warner Bros. to Disney. Those shifts cued the creation of Fox as a fourth TV network and Disney's growth into a multimedia behemoth . Now, in less than a year, Katzenberg leaves Disney and starts DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen; Ovitz's partner Ron Meyer takes the vacant post at MCA; and Ovitz, the top dealmaker, joins Eisner, the most powerful showman. Says director and CAA client Martin Scorsese: "It will be interesting to see what films get made, and who flourishes, in this new world order...
...industry convulsions could be seismic. Watch the Hollywood earth tremble! CAA clients like Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise feel orphaned, while rival agencies go all adrool, dreaming of talent raids. Or, as David Letterman--whom Ovitz sold to CBS as the $42 million late-night man--says, "Oh, my God, it's the end of show business!" He's probably joking...
...while maintaining his sitcom reputation as the most likable kid on the block. Not that Howard's easygoing nature prevents him from firing unprofessional actors or screenwriters who can't deliver the goods. "He's tougher than all of us," Creative Artists Agency chief and Hollywood hardball player Michael Ovitz has said...
...Michael Ovitz isn't going anywhere. Negotiations for the Creative Artists Agency chairman to head MCA collapsed as Seagram completed its $5.7 billion purchase of 80% of the entertainment giant. Disputes between Ovitz and Seagram ceo Edgar Bronfman Jr. over executive autonomy and a compensation package worth more than $200 million are speculated to have caused the impasse...