Michael Ovitz explains the advisory fee pool paid by Japanese conglomerate Matsushita for orchestrating the buyout of MCA Universal.
Insight
Michael Ovitz preferred negotiating with conflicted people to ensure deals closed
“You know, I've always felt, and I still do, I'm really interested in dealing with conflicted people because if you have a conflict, in essence, you want it to work out on both sides. So a lot of times I'll go to someone with a heavy conflict to this day to wor…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ovitz: Michael Eisner undercut me at every opportunity at Disney
“When I got to Disney, it was very clear there was a head-to-head conflict, and Michael undercut me every chance he could, and after a couple years, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore”
Disclosure
CAA never pitched unpackaged ideas or individual clients to movie studios
“And we would never sell any idea or client unpackaged or naked to a studio ever, ever. So anything we did was pre-packaged where we controlled all the elements and our clients controlled their own destiny.”
Assertion Contradicted
CAA packaged 350 films and treated traditional studios strictly as distributors
“Or any of the 350 films that we packaged, Tootsie, Rain Man, go down a forever list, you had a choice. You'd, you'd buy the package, or we'd sell it to somebody else, because we viewed the studios as distribution entities.”
Insight
Ovitz: Tech investing is the same packaging playbook as Hollywood agency representation
“All of the training I had as an agent has led me to a career in the digital world that's fantastic because what am I doing? I'm packaging. I'm putting young founders together with money and distribution, and nothing different than I did for 35 years. It's all …”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
CAA represented roughly 45 of the top 50 highest-grossing directors in 1990
“And frankly, as CAA gained momentum in the eighties and early nineties, they didn't have a lot of choice because of the 50 top grossing directors in the, for example, in 90, CAA represented like 45 of them. So it was impossible. You couldn't say no.”