In the first-class cabin of a Boeing 747 flying from Tokyo to Los Angeles, Michael Ovitz passed the entire twelve-hour flight buried in documents.
He had originally tried to broker Sony's purchase of MCA, but when Lew Wasserman demanded eight billion dollars, Sony whose market value at the time barely exceeded fourteen billion declined. Ovitz then turned his attention to Columbia.
Coca-Cola happened to be looking to shed non-core assets, and negotiations had officially begun.
It was January 7.
Ovitz and the team assisting Sony with the Columbia acquisition had spent two days in Tokyo and were now on their way back.
The young man had already left for Australia to shoot Batman, yet Hollywood still seemed to orbit around Daenerys Entertainment. Every document Ovitz reviewed on the flight concerned Daenerys.
For the year ending December 31, 1988, the North American box office totaled 4.69 billion dollars.
Calculated by distributor, Disney led all studios with 531 million dollars and an 11.3% market share.
Paramount, Warner, and Universal followed, each hovering around 10%.
Daenerys Entertainment's self-distributed titles Scream, Steel Magnolias, Dead Poets Society, Rain Man, and the minor Elvira, Mistress of the Dark had earned 256 million dollars by year-end, giving them a 5.5% share.
On paper, Daenerys looked ordinary.
Yet everyone in Hollywood knew that metric was pure self-deception.
Counted by production credit instead, Daenerys's seven films that year When Harry Met Sally, Pulp Fiction, Basic Instinct, Scream, Steel Magnolias, Dead Poets Society, and Rain Man had already grossed 730 million dollars by December 31.
Seven films, 730 million dollars, 15.6% market share.
Those 730 million dollars came from just seven pictures, while Disney's 531 million required fifteen releases one of them, When Harry Met Sally, produced by Daenerys.
If final North American totals were projected, the seven Daenerys films would likely approach a staggering 900 million dollars nearly 20% of the entire annual box office.
Should this continue, Daenerys Entertainment could well become the kind of industry titan MGM had been in Hollywood's Golden Age.
An independent studio rising to such dominance in only two years would, under normal circumstances, have earned Michael Ovitz's unqualified admiration. But this particular powerhouse now stood in direct opposition to CAA.
Ovitz felt no remorse for the part CAA had played in escalating the Rain Man dispute. He had once told his clients that, if necessary, he would kill for them. It was that uncompromising loyalty CAA's willingness to do whatever it took to protect its talent that drew the biggest stars to the agency.
If friendship was off the table, then enmity would do.
Daenerys's strength threatened to inflict serious damage on the traditional major studios. After his recent overture for reconciliation was rejected, Ovitz quietly sounded out the heads of the Big Seven to see whether they might band together to contain Daenerys.
The answer was no.
Warner was currently partnered with Daenerys on Batman and Leap of Innocence; turning hostile was impossible.
Disney still held one directing commitment from Simon Westeros. Given the box office performance of Run Lola Run and Pulp Fiction, any film he personally directed had clear blockbuster potential; Disney had no intention of jeopardizing that.
Fox had collaborated on three consecutive hits The Butterfly Effect, Final Destination, and Basic Instinct and the Murdoch and Johnston families shared Australian roots through Simon Westeros's girlfriend. Confrontation was unlikely.
Three of the seven majors eliminated; any coordinated suppression became fantasy.
Of the remaining four, Paramount was enjoying strong performance and had no appetite for a fight. Columbia was preoccupied with its own sale. MGM had been burned on Rain Man and harbored resentment, but in its weakened state it lacked the power to act.
Universal was the last. Ovitz knew Lew Wasserman had quietly pushed the Scream rating controversy, yet for unknown reasons Universal had taken no further steps.
In short, uniting the seven majors against Daenerys's ascent was impossible. Smaller players like Orion had even less leverage.
At bottom, Ovitz understood, there simply wasn't enough shared self-interest yet. Daenerys commanded a huge slice of the box office, but not yet large enough to make the other studios feel existentially threatened.
Under those conditions, the old guard could only mount reflexive counterattacks in specific arenas.
The upcoming awards season, for example.
The traditional powers would certainly work to keep Daenerys films off the podium.
Another likely tactic: poaching promising projects directly from Daenerys's pipeline.
Thinking of this, Ovitz again reached into his stack of materials and pulled out the scripts for The Rocketeer and Fire Birds.
He had read both several times in recent days and had thoroughly investigated how Paramount acquired them.
Paramount president Sidney Ganis had bribed Simon Westeros's secretary to intercept the packages an old Hollywood trick, neither honorable nor especially shameful.
Yet Ovitz sensed something off.
Simon Westeros's response had been unnervingly calm. Daenerys had simply fired the secretary and made no effort to reclaim the projects. Compared to their aggressive maneuvers during the Rain Man affair, the restraint felt abnormal.
Ovitz had entertained various theories.
Perhaps Westeros was confident the films would fail in other hands.
Or perhaps this was a deliberate trap.
Neither explanation quite satisfied him.
Ovitz firmly believed that if a studio committed serious focus and adequate resources, a picture could hardly tank completely; catastrophic failure was rare.
Moreover, with so many steps between script and screen, truly doomed projects were almost nonexistent in Hollywood. Most disasters happened when filmmakers mangled perfectly viable material during production.
Some time later, the cabin announcement informed passengers of impending landing. Only then did Ovitz surface from his thoughts.
Maybe he was being paranoid.
Daenerys currently had two comic-book adaptations in active development: Batman and [?]. Meanwhile, CAA client Warren Beatty was negotiating with Disney over another comic property, Dick Tracy.
Perhaps comic-book movies really were the coming trend.
As for Fire Birds, Tom Cruise had personally championed Top Gun years earlier. A film consciously modeled on that success, handled with care, could hardly flop.
Furthermore, Matt Dillon repped by Jonathan Friedman, whose close ties to Simon Westeros were well known was reportedly pursuing the Fire Birds lead. That alone seemed to rule out any trap.
As the plane descended, Ovitz gathered his papers, fastened his seat belt, and resolved to have CAA talent pursue lead roles on both projects aggressively. Cruise would probably pass on another military-pilot part, but the title role in The Rocketeer suited him perfectly.
With that settled in his mind, he disembarked.
Only after settling into the company car waiting at arrivals did his assistant brief him on an incident that had unfolded over the past two days.
Kirstie Alley, one of CAA's top television actresses, had abruptly announced her departure to WMA. Stars of her caliber rarely stayed if they were determined to leave, so CAA had let her go without protest.
Then, that very morning, Daenerys Entertainment issued a press release: Kirstie Alley had officially joined the cast of [?], replacing Meg Ryan in the female lead role of Molly Ubrica.
Upon hearing the news, the normally composed Ovitz erupted in profanity inside the car.
A single defection would not have bothered him.
But this move sent a dangerous message throughout Hollywood: to work on a Daenerys picture, one must first exit CAA.
If that perception took hold and if Daenerys's box office streak continued CAA could face a catastrophic exodus of talent.
[TL/N: Please tell me the exact title of the movies that has [?] marked.]