June
12
CAA, Transformers and Toy Stories
Writing about the Hollywood talent agencies is a dangerous game. You can't win. So the NYT's Michael Cieply figured out that you can get away with a story about the hazards of being the number one agency if you lead off by embarrassing them. Cieply states many facts about CAA's size and increasing dominance, but before he goes there, he writes about the defection of Hasbro Toys--which is behind the upcoming summer tentpole Transformers--to the William Morris Agency.
Thus Cieply managed to avoid infuriating the other agencies. WMA got to gloat over its win, while Cieply also handed little plums to CAA's other would-be rivals to keep them from going apoplectic. In the sensitive agency world, where each agent is trying to hang on to each and every slippery client, perception is everything. And with CAA especially dominant on the film talent side, nobody wants the newspaper of record to overstate that fact.
Also, many corporate clients are loss leaders for the agencies, mainly offering the agency chieftans chances to hang out with new media big-wigs at such places as Herbert Allen's Sun Valley annual retreat. But most agencies would trade in a decent movie star for a dozen corporate clients.
On the other hand, Cieply's piece contains a few twisted turns of phrase that my brain struggled with, like: "But the embarrassment comes just as [CAA] is trying to prove that it can mirror, if not exactly match, the intricacy and reach of the media conglomerates and consumer and technology companies that have come to define the entertainment world." Say what?
Meanwhile, Variety got its Transformers-hooked toy story in days before the LAT got around to it.
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