Universal

"Kerkorian had very few words for anyone about anything, and what words he used were monosyllabic. He was always direct and clear, and could be counted on to live up to his word. While he was extremely charitable, his contributions were always anonymous. He was an economic adventurer, the true essence of a high-wire industrial gambler. At that time, he had recently opened the biggest hotel in the history of Las Vegas, the MGM Grand, which had gone violently over budget. Everything was going wrong for him when he walked into Bob Evans’s house to meet with Charlie Bluhdorn and Lew Wasserman and… um… me. Kerkorian’s hope of making a deal with Paramount and Universal was his last gasp at averting bankruptcy. MGM owned lots of assets outside the United States and had a first-rate worldwide distribution company, but like Paramount it didn’t have enough pictures to support it. Some years earlier, Charlie had persuaded Wasserman to combine the separate international distribution operations of Paramount and Universal into one company serving both. The idea pitched to Kerkorian was to join the distribution venture and sell some of the theaters MGM owned to raise cash for his hotel."

"The Universal executives were justifying making a terrible and very expensive movie called *Van Helsing,* about the vampire hunter from *Dracula*, saying that they’d come in short of the $700 million if they didn’t make it. I said, “That’d be fine with me,” and they said if they came in under this year’s budget, the next year’s would be cut back. I said, “Who cares? The only ‘care’ is that the script for *Van Helsing* is unreadable,” and they said I didn’t understand the modern movie business. Also that they had “green light” authority for making films and I shouldn’t stand in their way. I hate this term, “green light”; I believe that the final call on filmmaking decisions should always be made by the chief executive."

"Hesitatingly, but enough to stop everyone from getting up to leave, I started to speak. “First of all, MCA makes cookie-cutter films on a vast assembly line with efficient-but-boring in-house producers. Second, they’d control it totally, and we’d never get out from under the Octopus”—that’s how the all-powerful MCA/Universal was known—“and this is our one chance to be in control and not give everything over to the Hollywood factory. The only way to be successful with such an unproven project is to treat each movie as a stand-alone project, based solely on the material, and be open to every talented person who has a good idea. That isn’t the MCA way.”"

"I went into more than overdrive. I attacked on three fronts: the costs, the creative, and an argument for our maintaining control instead of giving it up to Universal. I was convinced that $600,000 for each movie was a made-up number, with no basis other than it was what they demanded. Of course, I couldn’t know, since I’d never produced more than a postage stamp in the mail room. I had to learn fast on bottom-up budgeting, figuring out just how many days it might take to shoot a ninety-minute movie. How much ABC sales could get for the commercials. What independent producers might be available, since I doubted we could count on the major studios to produce at our costs. How to come up with a framework for actually making deals with those producers. How much each film would cost. I needed to figure out all these things in areas where I had no experience—I didn’t even know the right doors to knock on to find the answers. And I needed to know all this within a week, and all I had was my untutored brain and the energy of a speed bunny. I made up a production plan on pure instinct and common sense, though I couldn’t figure out how to pay for it."

"Companies were “budgeting” total costs for making movies; Universal’s that year was $700 million. I thought there should be no budget, just start at zero and build up from there only when a movie and its individual cost made sense. Macro numbers and forward projections are fine for accounting, but anathema as a decision tool in making movies, which are and always will be onetime, one-off projects."

"At the time, there was no such thing as “media.” Movie studios dominated entertainment, and the five majors (Paramount/Warners/Columbia/Fox/Universal) had worldwide importance. If you ran one of these film companies, you were a prominent figure wherever you went. In those early years, though, I wasn’t swanning anywhere; I was just trying to figure out this weird and dysfunctional studio I was now in charge of. Because I’d offed Yablans in such a public and brutal way, everyone was now afraid of me. And I was petrified that they would find out just how unqualified I actually was. Only if I slowed everything down could I begin to understand all the parts and then try to rearrange them into something coherent. I tend to make things worse in the beginning as I fumble around trying to get to base truths. Instinct, which I prize almost above all else, doesn’t work very well for me in abstruse matters. I have to get to the core DNA on any matter, its logical essence, before I can add anything of value. For me this takes a lot of time, often to the irritation of faster thinkers. But when it does crystallize, I can’t be deterred."

"I first approached him in business when I was twenty-five and buying a package of films from his Universal studio. I went to his office and said, ever so tentatively, that given we were buying sixty-four units at $600,000 each, couldn’t you just cut one unit from that sixty-four? Two beats. He stared. He said, “No.” Nothing more. Just no. Silence. The stare. And I folded like the cheapest tent. But as I got up to go, dejectedly knowing the fool that I was, he walked me out and, in that very quiet voice of his, said, “Next time you try this, be fully prepared to call the whole deal off if you don’t get what you asked for. Because, otherwise, you never will.” Out I went as the door closed silently behind me. It was the best lesson in negotiating and has stayed with me ever after."

"The reason for the conflict was the way the original agreement had been written, with one critically important paragraph. It stated that all future cable channels owned by either Universal or Paramount were to be equally shared, so when Viacom bought Paramount, Universal took the position that it was entitled to own half of Viacom’s cable networks, which included MTV and Nickelodeon. Sumner Redstone, who controlled Viacom, went bonkers when he heard this extreme claim and countersued Universal, saying *he* ought to own the USA Network. As lawsuits tend to, this one dragged on for some time, and the final settlement gave Universal sole ownership of USA."