FURIOUS 7 -- A ten car pile-up of a movie

I know it’s a colossal boxoffice hit, breaking records worldwide. People are obviously clamoring to see this movie. So a review by me is not going to have the slightest effect on anything. The only reason I’m doing it is because I just have to get it off my chest.

A couple of points first. I love action movies. I recognize them as escapist fare. Who doesn’t love a good thrill ride? Who doesn’t like to sit in a theater and think “COOL!!!” when some spectacular feat is performed right before your eyes on a giant screen in THX sound?

There are always plot holes. You have to suspend a certain amount of belief. When Superman turns back into Clark Kent how come his business suit is never wrinkled? And where on the Superman costume does he store Clark’s glasses? When James Bond is captured, why doesn't the supervillain just shoot him? How does Jack Bauer get cellphone service in an airplane? Who teaches Indiana Jones’ classes when he’s off looking for Jesus’ pencilbox? You have to allow for some creative license. We pay good money precisely to “cut to the chase.”

Filmmakers need to up the ante. That’s the nature of action flicks. 70 year-old Lotte Lenya trying to kick James Bond with a spike in her shoe ain’t gonna cut it anymore (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE). We’ve seen explosions. Ho hum. We’ve been on car chases. Nameless armies in matching colorful jumpsuits have been wiped out by one secret agent or anthropology professor. New stunts must be conceived. And executed. Thanks to CGI, blue screen, and other techno tricks, seemingly anything you can imagine can now be realized.

The first FAST & FURIOUS was a fun movie. There were some white-knuckle sequences and they did a great job of establishing relationships between the lead-foot drivers.

So I went into FURIOUS 7 with high hopes and low expectations.

Now my review, hopefully in a style not too derivative of Pauline Kael:

FURIOUS 7 is an absolute fucking mess! What the fuck was that?! No, seriously! There’s not a fucking frame of this stink burger that’s rooted in any reality. Roadrunner cartoons are more realistic. Is this what the action film genre has become? Mindless idiotic fucking stunts that defy all laws of gravity, physics, logic, and common sense? Hand-to-hand combat where the combatants beat the living shit out of each other and neither is even bruised? They crash through glass walls. No cuts. They hit each other with lead pipes. No blood. Their heads are smashed through concrete walls – not even a mild concussion. What the fuck was I watching? Nobody dies. Cars go over cliffs, roll over seventeen times, are twisted gnarled wrecks when they finally come to a rest 1,000 feet down the hill, and the passengers just wriggle out without so much as a scratch. At least Wile E. Coyote looks disheveled when he swallows a lit stick of dynamite that explodes in his stomach. Not Vin Diesel. Not Jason Stratham. Not the Rock. Creative license is one thing but this is fucking preposterous.

Cars go flying out of airplanes, the GPS-directed parachutes open, and the cars land right side up on the highway. Are you fucking kidding me? A car drives through a window in a skyscraper and lands in the adjoining skyscraper. And they do this stupid stunt twice!

In THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, a skier takes off from a mountain and we follow him down thousands of feet until a parachute opens. It’s a thrilling memorable sequence. Why? Because it really happened. There was a stuntman who actually skied off a mountain. NONE of these fucking FURIOUS stunts were real. No fucking car drove from building to building. It’s all bullshit.

And the dialogue was worse than the stunts. Just one fucking cliché or slogan after another delivered in dead serious tones.

“The thing about a street fight is that the street always wins.”

“I’m going to put a hurting on him so bad, he’s gonna wish his mama kept her legs closed.”

“Time to unleash the beast.”

“I live my life a quarter mile at a time. You do too. That’s why we’re brothers.”

Otherwise, it’s just relentless destruction. A fucking drone zooming overhead in LA shooting rockets? The military wouldn’t shoot that thing out of the sky in five seconds? They need super spyware to locate people yet occasionally just call time out and everyone flies to a new world location to resume the mayhem somewhere else. Now we’re in Abu Dhabi/now we’re in downtown Los Angeles. And if the film wasn’t blatantly exploitative enough, the overblown action is punctuated with shameless shots of hot girls in bikinis writhing or pouring water on themselves.

Then, as an afterthought they do a tacked-on tribute to the late Paul Walker. It’s maudlin and cringeworthy. And somewhat offensive considering he died in an auto accident and the movie celebrates two-plus rollicking hours of crash porn.

I fully expect to get some angry comments. I’m too old to appreciate head-on collisions at full speed where nobody even gets whiplash. I somehow missed the subtleties of the complex relationships (Paul Walker is having a hard time adjusting to being a father and not leaping out of planes – haven’t seen that storyline before), I take things too literal (like the existence of gravity), I’m jealous, I’m not as smart as critics, I have a thing against reckless driving, Vin Diesel wouldn’t let me create a sitcom for him, Sean Connery isn’t in it, I’m a snob, I now can’t sell my idea for a new Tom & Jerry movie, I don’t appreciate “Furious LORE,” or finally, I’m just an idiot.

Have at it. But it’s not going to change my mind. On a scale of 1-100, I’d have to say FURIOUS 7.

To repeat:  What the fuck?!

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Hey, there's a portion of my car on national TV!

In the first year of CHEERS, they still edited the show on film (later they would transfer the film to tape and edit digitally). One time my partner, David and I were asked to go over to editing and check something out. We walked across the lot to the building where our editors were located, trudged up the stairs, glanced out the big window that greeted us at the top of the stairs, and we both just stopped dead in our tracks.

It hit us both instantly.

That was the view out of Lucy and Ricky’s hotel room in Hollywood during that famous season of I LOVE LUCY. They must’ve taken the photo for the backdrop from right there.

This is one of the cool things about living in Los Angeles – recognizing locations in TV or movies that I know or have been to.

And it’s especially great when it comes as an unexpected surprise.

Here's another example: I grew up in Woodland Hills, a suburb of the San Fernando Valley. About ten years ago I’m watching a rerun of an old ‘50s action/crime show called HIGHWAY PATROL. This starred Broderick Crawford, an overweight middle-aged balding alcoholic as the head of the CHP. (Imagine getting that guy through network casting today? Now the same part would be played by Elizabeth Mitchell.)

Quick side note: Crawford really was an alcoholic. In fact, he had so many DUI’s that his drivers’ license had been permanently revoked. This caused a big problem because how can the head of the Highway Patrol not be able to drive? So a concession was reached. Crawford was allowed to drive but only when the camera was running. So the director would yell “Action!”, Crawford would drive the car, the director would yell “Cut! Let’s go again!”, and Crawford would have to exit the vehicle so a crew member could drive the car back to the original spot.

Anyway, I’m watching this show (probably on cable channel 863) and Crawford is driving down a street. Suddenly I recognize a storefront. Neider’s Auto Body. Holy shit! It hits me – he’s driving down Ventura Blvd., right where I used to live! I, of course, hadn’t seen that street in a million years. But it all came flooding back to me. He passed Dillaway Realty. I knew instantly what he would pass next – the Pool Supply store, then the Gulf gas station, the freeway underpass, and Love’s BBQ.

Sure enough the tracking shot continued. There was the Pool Supply place, there was the Gulf station, and then… what the fuck!? There was no freeway underpass. This must’ve been filmed a year before the freeway was erected.

I can’t tell you how absolutely weird that was. Truly, like being in a time machine.

And that was just one example. The Bob Hope movie, BACHELOR IN PARADISE was filmed in my neighborhood. The tract house he lived in was the same model as mine. (The interior was different though. Ours didn’t have Lana Turner.) There were scenes in the Woodlake Bowl where I once sprained my thumb! Landmarks popped up throughout the whole movie.

And this was not a rare occurrence.  I was very excited one afternoon to come out of the Woodland Hills library and see that they were filming a scene from THE FBI there. Efrem Zimbelist Jr.(who had his license) pulled his car to a stop right in front. And there, in the shot, for all to see, was the back fin of my Mercury Comet! The night it aired I actually invited friends over.

This is one of the perks of living in a company town. Seeing old neighborhoods and places long since turned into Costcos.  It's a real blast from the past. And it makes up for the horrible downside.

For every nostalgic wistful moment I’ve had, there are an equal or greater number of moments when I’ve been really pissed because traffic is snarled due to location filming of some fucking idiotic movie or TV show. Streets are blocked off.  Temporary "No Parking" signs are everywhere.  Equipment trucks and cable as far as the eye can see.  Giant lights blind you at night.  “Why can’t they film this goddamn thing in Pittsburgh”?! I’ve been known to yell.

But then I see Neider's Auto Body and realize I'm the luckiest guy in the world. 

This was a re-post from many many years ago. How many of you even remember it?

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My "Sam Kinison" period

Here's another tale of my checkered radio career. Back in 1974 I was a screaming disc jockey (literally) at WDRQ, Detroit. My tenure was short-lived but memorable.

At the time I had been out of work as a disc jockey for about six months. No one wanted a high energy, “youthful”-voiced, wise-ass-bordering-on-insane platter spinner (or, to be more accurate – music cartridge inserter). The program director of KYNO in Fresno kept me dangling for months for an all-night gig and eventually gave it to someone else. Needless to say, I was depressed. I mean, when they don’t think you’re good enough to talk to empty fields at 3 AM you tend to believe you don’t have a rosy future in this profession.

I had even gotten a different job – working in the research department of NBC. But preparing test results for Bob Crane pilots didn’t seem like the best way to fill five or six decades either.

And then, out of the blue, I get a call from the new program director of WDRQ. How would I like to come to Detroit and do 6-10 in the evening? This was unbelievable. I wasn’t qualified for all-nights in market #110 but was good enough to do a primo slot in market #5 or 6? The money was probably less than I’d get in Fresno but that was besides the point. I was heading to a major market!

The program director picked me up at the airport and drove me right to the station. It was snowing. This was mid-April. He wanted me to do a break-in show in the middle of the night – get used to the equipment and format so when I premiered at 6 PM I knew what I was doing.

I said, “Fine” without stopping to think – when am I going to sleep? I didn’t want to be rude and say, “I really should check into a motel instead of drinking beer and smoking more joints with you” so I just sucked it up. And then at midnight he drove me to the station, wished me luck, and drove off.  I went on the air – half-smashed, no preparation, and having already been up for close to 24 hours. It was my best show. 

“Oh, by the way”, I told him after we were both seeing mermaids at the IHOP, “I want to use the name Beaver Cleaver on the air.” He was so wasted he didn’t even ask me why. The answer to that is I wanted a name that stood out, was easy to say, and let’s be honest, was dirty.

I got off the air at 6 AM, met the morning man – a surely bitter fellow with a great voice and nothing else. The fact that I was funny, he hated me instantly. The program director arrived, said he was thrilled with how I sounded, and took me to breakfast at the IHOP, where it turns out, those mermaids were just the cleaning crew.

So after a good late morning sleep, the Beaver Cleaver show premiered on WDRQ at 6 that night. Got a call from the PD that I sounded great.

Things were going well and would remain that way… for another eight hours. The program director called me into his office. Apparently there was a problem. The station’s “consultant” had heard me and felt I needed a slight adjustment in my act. He wanted me to scream more. By more he meant every time I opened my mouth. The evening jock should sound super high energy and the way to achieve that (according to this moron) was to have the disc jockey scream. And I had no choice. Either scream or be fired after one day.

So I did and I sounded like a complete idiot. Imagine Sam Kinison introducing Carpenters records. I generally went through a spritz bottle of Chloraseptic every show. No one will ever hear tapes of me on WDRQ, and if you have one I’m going to have to kill you.

I frantically sent out audition tapes, and a few months later was offered a job at KYA, San Francisco. The WDRQ program director thought I was crazy taking that job. If I stuck it out in Detroit for a year I could get to Boston. A year? I’d sound like Kenny Rodgers by then. Plus, what’s wrong with San Francisco?

About a month later I received a letter from the program director. He had forwarded a petition some high school circulated to try to get me back on WDRQ. I still have it of course. It’s my most cherished keepsake from my radio days.

My first time back in Detroit since those days was when I was broadcasting for the Orioles in 1991. I rented a car and thought I’d tool around the old haunts. The neighborhood where WDRQ was located in my day was an absolute war zone. Not that it was ever Park Ave. to begin with, but now the street was littered with graffiti, squalor, and the folks screaming were not introducing Motown records. I haven’t been back since. Although, I must admit, I’m a little curious. Today it’s probably gentrified and gorgeous and all the apartments have been refurbished – now with hardwood floors and the meth labs removed – and it’s the happening place to live in Detroit. Or it’s been razed to the ground.  Either way, there should be a plaque -- to WDRQ, or, as I used to call it on the air -- W-Dreck.

This was a re-post from four years ago.  For some reason my stories of getting bitch slapped in radio are very popular.  

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Friday Questions

If Friday Questions are here can the weekend be far behind?

Rod is up first.

What did you think of the recent Modern Family episode that took place entirely on Claire Dunphy's laptop?

As a computer illiterate, and a fan of the show, I enjoyed it immensely. As a writer, are these "gimmick" episodes hard to conceive? I'm thinking all the way back to the MASH episode "The Interview" which was also completely different than the standard MASH format at the time, but highly successful.

I enjoyed it and applaud their willingness to experiment and break the format. My only issues with it are it’s impossible to have FaceTime with two people at once. And there were times things flashed on and off so fast I had trouble keeping up.

The “gimmick” aspect didn’t bother me because I thought it was well done, and it was only a half hour. I know I will outrage some readers but I got real tired of the gimmick of BIRDMAN. All it did was distract me from following any real emotional story. Especially since it was all trickery. The movie was not filmed in one continuous shot. It was all stitched together by computer programs. So after twenty minutes the whole exercise just started feeling pretentious to me. (How did I get off on that rant?)

On MASH we did the "Point of View" episode, which worked out well.  The key to a successful gimmick episode is that a) the gimmick doesn't wear thin in five minutes and b) underneath you need a good solid story the audience can be invested in.  

Oh... and only do gimmick shows on rare occasions. 

COMMUNITY was another show that took chances, sometimes with inspired results. 

Julie has a question about extras:

Are extras told to say anything in particular in case of lip readers? And are they given any special requirements regarding how to act (act natural?), how to sit or stand, how much they can move, don't look at the camera (I noticed some do, and that some laugh at what the characters are doing or saying; are they told to?) The camera caught one extra wiping her eyelid with a finger as she was sitting next to Cliff at the bar. Made me laugh.

Extras are not told specifically what to silently say. But they are told exactly when to cross or where to sit. If not, invariably an extra will cross in front of the star just as he’s delivering a punchline.

Extras are also told not to look at the camera under any circumstances and not to bring attention to themselves. Doing so will result in almost immediate dismissal.

The real problem is when extras need to react. Cliff sets his nose on fire. The extras should take notice and silently react. Diane announces she and Sam are getting married. The extras should react. Some don’t. They just ignore what’s happening and go about their business.

I remember in an episode of the old ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN series there was a scene in the Daily Planet. Two crooks, wearing full lead helmets (because as everyone knows, Superman can’t see through lead) in business suits with fedoras walk down the hall. Two extras pass them and neither takes any notice. A pair of executives in lead helmets and that doesn’t catch their attention.

There are some people who make their living as an extra. They generally work for one studio or another. We did MASH at 20th and I saw our extras pop up all the time on 20th shows or movies.

KG has a question all the way from Germany.


Given the chance to choose, what kind of show would a network prefer: a successful drama or a successful comedy?


This is an easy one. No format of television is as potentially lucrative as a big hit sitcom.

First of all, they’re cheaper to produce than hours. And fans will watch repeat viewings. Once you know what happened in many of these serialized dramas you’re done. But you’ll watch favorite episodes of sitcoms over and over (and thank you by the way). 

And you can slot comedies any time of the day or night. Dramas tend to do better at night. Sitcoms are more versatile for filling holes in your schedule.

Ultimately, this is why sitcoms will never die. In success they’re just too profitable.

Carol asks:

Ken - if my community theatre ever got the rights to do your show A OR B?, think you'd be able to come to Pennsylvania to watch it? Would you even want to?

I would LOVE to come! A real good way to get me to come to your town is to have your local theater do A OR B? Seriously, contact me if you’re interested.

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A GREAT writing (and acting) exercise

Hey they, scribes, do you sometimes have scenes that don’t work and you’re not sure why?  Or scenes that feel too long or unfocused?  There's a great exercise that will help solve these problems.  

It's actually an improv exercise.  Andy Goldberg in his improvisation workshop had us do this last night and my first thought was, as helpful as this is to actors it's even more helpful to writers. 

Here's how it works:  Two or three actors do a scene.  And then repeat it.  Two more times. The first time the scene is a minute long. The second time the exact same scene is thirty seconds. And the third time the exact same scene is ten seconds.

The exercise forces you to edit and ultimately distill the scene down to its very basic objective. Now, I’m not saying all scenes need to be less than a minute. You want the jokes and interaction and great character moments. But you also have to determine what’s really needed. And it’s amazing how you can always find trims.

For purposes of demonstration, I’ve taken a scene from the “Room Service” episode of FRASIER that David Isaacs and I wrote. Applying this exercise I’ve written three versions.

(In the story, Frasier has discovered that Niles has slept with Lilith. He runs out of the hotel room but returns. The point of the scene is that since all three are psychiatrists, they all have different psychological explanations based on their individual philosophies)

HERE’S THE ORIGINAL VERSION: 

THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. LILITH OPENS IT AND FRASIER COMES BACK INTO THE HOTEL ROOM.

NILES: I knew you couldn’t stay mad at us.

FRASIER: I’m in a bathrobe, you jackass.

FRASIER BEGINS COLLECTING HIS CLOTHES AS SOMETHING DAWNS ON LILITH.

LILITH: I can understand your shock and – believe me, if I could erase everything that happened last night I would. But if you look at this rationally for a moment, we didn’t technically do anything wrong.

FRASIER: What?! You didn’t do anything wrong?

NILES: I’m a little unclear on that myself but I’m willing to go along with it.

LILITH: You and I are no longer married. Neither is Niles. I won’t say this is my shining hour but we’re not responsible to you or anyone else for our actions.

FRASIER: I can’t believe this! You’re actually defending what you did?

LILITH: Just listen. The past few days have been the worst of my life. I’ve never felt less self-assured, more in need of validation, both as a person and as a woman. And Niles was feeling the same thing.

NILES: Exactly. (realizing) Wait a minute.

LILITH: (to Frasier) Our physical reaction to each other was nothing more than a desperate attempt to reaffirm our own worth.

FRASIER: Very impressive, Lilith. But I happen to be a psychiatrist too. Let me tell you what really transpired. This is a passive-aggressive manifestation of the deep resentments that you both have toward me. You were punishing me for my notoriety. My successful adjustment after our marriage. It is this shared bond that brought you two to your palace of sweet revenge.

LILITH: Allow me to rebut: What a crock.

FRASIER: It is not!

LILITH: This is yet another example of your complete self-absorption and the reason we could not stay together in the first place.

FRASIER: I think I have a right to -- why am I defending myself?

NILES: If you ask me, you’re both off the mark. Last night was all about two people ruled by very strong superegos, tortured by them, who had a chance, however misguided, to break through and rediscover their ids together. Call me an old softy, but that’s how I see it.

FRASIER: (a beat, then) Okay, then… the three of us have certainly analyzed the crap out of this.

HERE’S THE MODIFIED VERSION:

THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. LILITH OPENS IT AND FRASIER COMES BACK INTO THE HOTEL ROOM.

LILITH: Look, Frasier, you and I are no longer married. Neither is Niles. I won’t say this is my shining hour but we’re not responsible to you or anyone else for our actions.

FRASIER: You’re actually defending what you did?

LILITH: The past few days have been the worst of my life. I’ve never felt less self-assured, more in need of validation, both as a person and as a woman. Our physical reaction to each other was nothing more than a desperate attempt to reaffirm our own worth.

FRASIER: No, this is a passive-aggressive manifestation of the deep resentments that you both have toward me. It is this shared bond that brought you two to your palace of sweet revenge.

NILES: If you ask me, last night was all about two people ruled by very strong superegos, who had a chance to rediscover their ids together. Call me an old softy, but that’s how I see it.

FRASIER: (a beat, then) Okay, then… the three of us have certainly analyzed the crap out of this.

AND FINALLY, THE TEN SECOND VERSION:

THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. LILITH OPENS IT AND FRASIER COMES BACK INTO THE HOTEL ROOM.

LILITH: Frasier, the sex was just a desperate attempt to reaffirm our own worth.

FRASIER: No, it was a passive-aggressive manifestation of your shared resentment toward me.

NILES: No, it was two people with strong superegos rediscovering their ids.

FRASIER: (a beat, then) Okay, then… the three of us have certainly analyzed the crap out of this.

What you're essentially doing is finding the spine of your scene.  Or realizing you don't have one.   Try it.  You'll thank me (well... you'll thank Andy Goldberg).  Probably three times. 

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Your agent questions, my answers

I thought I’d follow up on yesterday’s post about CAA vs UTA. Got a number of questions about Hollywood agencies.  Here are my answers:

Matt asked:

"Outraged CAA executives call this a “lawless midnight raid.” Uh… isn’t that how they started? Same with Endeavor. That’s how it works in the piranha tank. "

For those of us who are not industry insiders, can you explain this a little?

They need copies of their deal memos, contracts, client information, their Rolodex (an antiquated term for contact information), development status reports, maybe inner office memos and emails, etc. Restaurant menus. At one time – Laker tickets.

30 wonders:

Can you explain a little about with a basic contract between an agent and talent is? What exactly are you agreeing to, to give 10% of any work the agent gets you? What if you find a job yourself without the agent's help? Still goodbye to 10%? Can you change agents readily or does 10% still go to the old agent for the contract term whether he's used or not? Can you have multiple agents in the same field? How tied is an individual agent to their agency? What's their freedom of movement? And so on...

If your agent covers that aspect of your career then yes, you’re obligated to give him 10%, even if you got the job yourself (e.g. your friend is a showrunner and over a couple of beers one night he decides to hire you). But if you’re represented as a writer and you get a gig as an actor on a show (e.g. many beers that night with the showrunner) that’s not commissionable.

You can leave your agency but they retain commissions on any contracts they negotiated while you were with them. You, as the client, are only obligated to give 10% total. It’s not like the new agent can also call for 10% commission on an existing contract.

So why would an agency take on a new client who let’s say is on staff of a show and figures to be there for several years thus paying commissions to someone else? Two reasons: The agency is making an investment in you. They figure that when the deal is up you’ll be a hot commodity and they can cash in then. And the other reason is this happens all the time so the new agency might not receive commissions from you on one project and they are still receiving commissions on another project from a client who left them.  It sort of evens out.

You generally have one agent for TV representation and one for features or theatrical, but it depends on the agency. Some have “team” structures. You could have several TV agents. Or your TV agent could be your point man and gets involved with your feature career as well. When agents package – in theory -- if you’re with an agency it’s easier to get access to actors who are also with that agency. Your rep and the actor’s rep both work on your behalf – again, in theory.

Agents will often accompany you to network pitch meetings. When we were with CAA they would send agents we had never met or seen, nor would we ever see again.

As for how tied an agent is to his agency, that’s a contractual issue and I’m sure it varies from case to case. Are there “no compete” clauses? Is the agent a partner? It can get sticky… and litigious.

One way an agency makes a bundle is by putting together package deals for TV series. If you create a show that becomes a series they take a percentage of the profits. But that also means they are not allowed to take commissions from any of their clients on shows in which they have package deals. Otherwise, it’s double-dipping. That made CHEERS an even better deal for us. We were with the agency that had the package deal on CHEERS, so for all the years we worked on it we never paid a cent of commission. 

And lastly, agents are not entitled to commissions on any residuals.

From Jerry Sayles:

How exactly is being a Hollywood agent any different than being a pimp? Is it just a better wardrobe?

No. Agents serve a very necessary function and a good one can enhance your career far beyond what you could do in that regard.

Finding work and creating work are generally two very different skill sets. As a creative person (I hate the term “artist”) breaking in I don’t know producers, network executives, studio executives. No one will take my call or read my unsolicited script. I don’t know what new trends are emerging or what new companies or platforms are about to be launched. Agents have information and access.

I always joke that when agents are courting you they always say, “Why aren’t you in a room with Steven Spielberg?” But the truth is, the right agent can get me into that room (in my case, unfortunately, that would be the restroom in the Staples Center).

A good agent can steer you to good opportunities and warn you off of bad ones. He can put together a long range plan for your career and take you down that path.  They can lobby networks.  They can broker deals, exploit leverage, etc.   Perception is reality in Hollywood and agents can create perception.

And if they’re good negotiators they can get you a lot more money than you could get yourself. And they could put clauses in the contract to protect you from any studio or network shenanigans.

Look, corporations are run by killers. I’m not a killer. I dream up funny stories. You need a killer to represent your best interests. A good agent is a godsend. And I don’t even resent that he dresses way better than me.

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CAA vs. UTA -- Hollywood's REAL game of thrones

The town is abuzz with the juicy story that many top agents have fled CAA for UTA, taking with them somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 clients.

The first thing ANYONE in Hollywood does when he hears such news is say, “How does this affect ME?” In my case, I’m already at UTA. It means the few times I go there it might be harder to park. (Former Hollywood exec/journalist Peter Bart suggested – hopefully in jest – that some clients are moving to UTA because there is more parking and the art on the walls is more people friendly).

I'm quite happy where I am.  Both my TV and theatrical agent are terrific. 

Next question we in the industry ask is “Which side am I rooting for?” Me? UTA. Not just because they’re my agency, but because in all the years I’ve been in the business, clearly the worst representation I’ve ever had was my one horrible year with CAA.

Agents are supposed to help you shape the career you desire. CAA decides how best you could suit their plans and steers you only in that direction. And often those plans are to benefit another more important client, not you. You need an agent to protect you from your real agent. You are merely a commodity to be packaged at their whim. Oh, and their parking is really shitty.

CAA is outraged by this UTA poaching and have reacted with a flurry of lawsuits. This tells me they’re really pissed, which only fuels the citywide schadenfreude. Outraged CAA executives call this a “lawless midnight raid.” Uh… isn’t that how they started? Same with Endeavor. That’s how it works in the piranha tank.

Obviously, CAA’s policies have been met with some disagreement among its “foot soldiers” (that’s how one-time CAA chief Mike Ovitz referred to his highly valued agents – foot soldiers).  Agents rarely change tenpercenteries based on artwork. 

What’s tough is if you’re a client of one of these defecting agents. Especially if you have two agents – one for TV and one for film. Do you go with the departing agent or stay with the remaining agent? First of all, most clients are initially pissed. Why? They hear about the upheaval after the fact, usually via the media. So they’re completely blindsided.

But agents need to be very stealth and letting one client know, even in secrecy, invariably leads to the lead story on that night’s ET.

So once the word is on the street then it’s the mad scramble of agents trying to persuade their clients to follow them or stay put. For that five second window the client is in a position of power. The agents court and promise the moon. Once the client makes his decision and signs, the promises are all forgotten or ignored, but the client has to be an idiot to believe the promises in the first place.

Adding to the complications, clients have histories with agencies. They may have left for CAA because they were unhappy with UTA. And now they’re asked to go back.  Really big promises that won't be kept need to be made.   I feel bad for Mindy Kaling. She just left UTA for CAA a month ago. Now her new agent has gone to UTA.  ("Mindy, baby, sign with us and I'll get you a five year renewal on your show... and how'd you like to be next year's Rose Bowl Queen?") 

What will the end result be to viewers and moviegoers? Nothing. Hollywood weathers these seismic changes every few years. Agencies merge, split off, have coups, but it’s the same pieces just repositioned on the same chessboard.

For now though, CAA (also known affectionately as the Death Star) is reeling. Yes, they’re still making billions in profits but not as many. But in the backrooms I’m sure the CAA top brass are plotting their next movw. “Who can we get to break into UTA and steal their artwork?”

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