HISTORY’s Moment in Media: Creative Artists Agency Comes to the Scene

Later that January 50 years ago this month Perkins and his former William Morris colleagues Michael Rosenfeld Ronald Meyer William Haber and most notably Michael Ovitz founded Creative Artists Agency which would go on to transform the role talent agencies could play in the entertainment business and dominate Hollywood over the next few decadesWilliam Morris from which the CAA founders defected had been around since 1898 It represented the old guard and the old way of doing things Ovitz the leader of the five CAA partners was ferociously ambitious and he was also a student of Japanese management techniques considered revolutionary at that time He was determined to bring to the traditionally siloed and secretive world of Hollywood talent agencies the concept of a horizontal and collaborative workplaceThe upstart idea was for the agents to suppress individual ego and work together as a group to benefit each individual agentamp8217s clients amp8220Every client is represented by the whole agencyamp8221 they say For decades a studio would approach an actor or director via their agent with a potential script and the talent would either sign on or pass At CAA the response to a studio was never a amp8220noamp8221 instead if the pitched actor wasnamp8217t interested theyamp8217d find out who else in the agencyamp8217s stable was and come back to the studio with a counterofferThis developed into the practice for which CAA became best known amp8220packagingamp8221 the art of pulling together a project prepackaged with the agencyamp8217s talent before it ever went out to a studio which both helped the project to get made and ensured CAA was well compensated for its efforts The art of packaging wasnamp8217t new a previous generationamp8217s dominant talent agency MCA was such a prolific packager that when it sought to acquire Universal Pictures in 1962 the US Department of Justice required on antitrust grounds that it shut down its agency operationsCAA didnamp8217t produce it only packaged In its early days with its founding partnersamp8217 backgrounds in William Morrisamp8217s television business it became a powerhouse in TV packaging hit shows including ALF Golden Girls and Empty Nest Rather than building its own book departments it developed productive relationships with a range of New York literary agents most notably the titan Mort Janklow which gave it access to a range of literary properties and helped it build a thriving business packaging miniseriesIt didnamp8217t hurt the business that this success enabled CAA to charge studios less for its packaging services than its competitors did 6 percent versus the standard 10 percent And it didnamp8217t hurt in attracting clients that the practice of packaging enabled CAA to put together a highwattage team that would make it much harder for a studio to say no to a clientamp8217s passion project Itamp8217s how CAA eventually got a Dustin Hoffman project made turning it into the hit Rain Man Itamp8217s how they helped Amy Heckerling make Clueless CAA packaging brought us Tootsie and Ghostbusters and Jurassic Park And it made a generation of toplevel talent supremely loyal to the agency that was able to help them reach their goalsTo develop bigger packages and help its clients achieve what they dream of CAA expanded into new areas Movies have soundtracks and so it expanded into music Celebrity athletes want to appear in media and so it expanded into sports In 1989 CAAamp8217s Ovitz helped retired LA Lakers legend Magic Johnson land an unprecedented deal with Pepsi one that made him the soft drinkamp8217s celebrity spokesman and netted him a lucrative stake in a Pepsi bottling plant And a few years later CAA expanded into advertising taking on creative duties for CocaColaIn 1995 Ovitz left CAA to become president of Walt Disney Only a few months earlier his key partner Ron Meyer had left for Universal The legendary era of CAA power ended But even as the agencyamp8217s leadership changed all these years later it remains one of the powerful amp8220Big Threeamp8221 Hollywood agencies ironically enough alongside WME formed by the merger of William Morris from which the CAA founders defected and Endeavor to which a clutch of CAA agents defected after Ovitz and Meyer leftThe art of packaging however has proved less resilient In 2022 after 7000 Hollywood writers fired their agents as part of a negotiating campaign the agencies agreed that theyamp8217d stop collecting packaging feesPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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