Word: spielbergism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...when that heart-and-mind contact is lacking, the best-laid plans can be upset. Also the best-laid tables. A February business dinner at Spielberg's estate in Pacific Palisades was supposed to cinch the deal with Samsung, whose proposed stake in DreamWorks had grown from $500 million to $900 million as the talks progressed. That night the guest list swelled too, to more than a dozen, and Kate Capshaw, Spielberg's actress wife, had to scurry to a local store for extra table linen. The elegant meal of Chilean sea bass and white wine (except for Katzenberg...
Film may be the universal language, but business can be Babel. When the Koreans, through an interpreter, explained their goals, Spielberg got a twinge in his belly--and it wasn't the bass. "The word semiconductor must have been used about 20 times during that 2-1/2-hr. encounter," Spielberg recalls. "I thought to myself, 'How are they going to know anything about the film business when they're so obsessed with semiconductors?' It was another one of those evenings that turned out to be a complete waste of time...
...DreamWorks. Geffen puts the discussion in bolder relief: "They wanted more than we were willing to give them. We didn't want one group to have too much control. We prefer having three 3,000-lb. gorillas in the room with us to one 9,000-lb. gorilla." And Spielberg did in fact learn something from the evening: "I realized that whoever became our equity partners, we needed to communicate in the same language...
...Spielberg alone among his media musketeers expresses some apprehension about the DreamWorks plan to do it all right now: "We could have built this up over a 15-year period. Instead, we're trying to do it in a couple of years. After our first planning sessions, I thought about how much easier it would be to start with a single film, make it, see how it does, and if it does well, do a second picture. That's the conservative, play-it-safe side that haunts me before I fall asleep at night...
...This happens all the time in show business--when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed in 1924, Samuel Goldwyn had already been forced out of the company. At DreamWorks, Katzenberg is a man with a mission; the other two are in it for the fun, which could wear thin quickly. Spielberg's plans to move to New York City may be on hold. But even in California, he can't give 24 hours a day to this job; Capshaw won't let him. Says Katzenberg: "I perfectly understand the ground rules: 8:30 to 5:30, Monday to Friday, is mine...