Sunset Boulevard: Shady Agents and Hepatitis A

This week, Slate.com wrote a disturbing article highlighting the somewhat shady business deals of Hollywood mega-agency Endeavor. Recently, Endeavor has gotten a huge amount of good publicity for the Oscars (clients include Michael Arndt and Martin Scorsese), and some bad publicity for stars that leave for the gigantic (and possibly cannibalistic) CAA, including Reese Witherspoon and Alejandro Gonzales Innuritu, but of course many people would say that any publicity is good publicity. I would beg to differ this time…

Slate.com broke a story this week about Endeavor’s shady business practices that reporter Kim Masters dubbed “the perfect crime.” She uses the example of Sasha Baron Cohen’s (whom you may know as Borat) deal for his follow up movie, Bruno.

A little background: When Borat started generating the insane amount of buzz it did in the weeks preceding its release, Endeavor and Cohen started shopping out a follow-up film, not yet written yet, to center around another popular sketch character of Cohen’s, Bruno. For those of you not familiar with “Da Ali G Show,” Bruno is Cohen’s flamboyantly gay counterpart who claims to be the voice of Austrian Youth and, just like Borat or Ali G, makes his interview subjects, unbeknownst to them, the brunt of every joke.

Universal won a bidding war, paying $42.5 million dollars for Bruno. Masters writes:

Before the bidding frenzy started, Endeavor sold Bruno to a financing entity called Media Rights Capital. MRC didn't take much of a risk, since the studios were fighting to buy the project before the proverbial ink was dry. In fact, MRC sold the package to Universal at such lightning speed that some at the studios have wondered aloud (if not on the record): Why did Endeavor need to bring MRC into the deal?

 
Agencies and agents are, by law, forbidden to produce in any capacity, and Masters goes on to suggest that MRC may even be an illegal production arm for Endeavor. It is also interesting that the co-CEO of MRC is Modi Wiczyk, who used to be an agent at Endeavor – although let’s be honest, there are many former agents who are now producers and studio heads, so that doesn’t mean much besides the obvious fact that Modi has lots of friends at Endeavor to submit great projects to her. However, where is the line between having good connections, and having an illegal connection?

Some in Hollywood perceive MRC as a unit of Endeavor—a unit positioned to cherry-pick projects.

Here’s a little bit more fuel to add to the fire: MRC gave Cohen a much better deal than he could ever have gotten at the studio. Not only is he getting paid more, as well as getting most of the backend, but he’s also retaining his own negative – which those of you familiar with the music business know is huge. So many are questioning, why would MRC give Cohen such a great deal if they weren’t part of Endeavor?

Oh, and on a totally different note, Wolfgang Puck endangers the celebrity public. After scaring the masses in February with the announcement that one of the Wolfgang Puck’s employees was infected with Hepatitis A and that attendees of 13 undisclosed Hollywood parties were at risk. TMZ.com found out that one of them was the Music & Lyrics premiere after-party with yours truly went to….good thing I’ve been vaccinated. Still, many of the parties remain a secret – Wolfgang Puck supposedly trying to inform attendees privately, but what about the people who weren’t celebrities, like me. Would we have ever found out? Isn’t that a tad irresponsible?

Alex M., Movie Correspondent

Alex's column, Sunset Boulevard, published every Friday to Gather Essentials: Movies, is a weekly summary of the movie industry's biggest stories.

Alex is a film school grad working at a production company in Hollywood. She's been passionate about movies since she knew what they were and always has an opinion (for better or worse).

You can find all of Alex's Sunset Boulevard columns at gather.com/SunsetBoulevard

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