By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
More On The Dart Thrown By Pat
Just a thought…
I think it’s great that Scott Rudin is coming to Leslee Dart’s side in this time of transition, but here is another angle on the "firing in the middle of Oscar season" angle…
Given that the contract was up sometime in December, waiting until the bitter end would be even more damaging for Oscar-leaning clients. The next week leads up to the Thanksgiving holiday… even though Mr. Rudin is revving the Closer engines right now, this is, for all intents and purposes, the only lull period until Christmas. And with nominations closing on January 15, a lot of publicists will be eating their Christmas goose at their desks.
Wouldn’t it have been much worse for this to drag on into December?
Also, by treating it as a termination and not as a simple exit at the end of a contract, doesn’t that blur the likely-contracted rules about client-taking, competition and staff cherry picking?
My guess is that by December 1, Ms. Dart’s clients will notice little has changed for them except for the name on the stationery.
Also…
This breakdown at PMK/HBH is oddly reminiscent of the breakdown of CAA as Ovitz left. It’s wasn’t the end of CAA by any stretch of the imagination. But it was the end of the monolithic view of agentry in this town.
CAA was The King. Likewise, outside of a few specific publicists, PMK has been seen as The King (or The Queen if you will). A big part of that power was an absolute domination of the biggest names in the game, which allowed for packaging on a higher level than anyone else. And the same has been true at PMK. Having a problem (like not signing your life away to get access) with Tom Cruise and you have had a problem with everyone else in town, it has seemed. It’s not that PMK still won’t be able to push really, really hard. But Cruise, Kidman, Hanks, Rudin and Imagine represent a big chunk of the current upper echelon and they will (most likely) now be flacked elsewhere.
It’s not exactly breaking up ATT, but in Hollywood terms…
Still can’t see this getting nominated. Doesn’t look appealing to the masses.