New York Times profile: Endeavor Talent Agency

The remarkably democratic Endeavor has 26 partners, including Adam Venit, front, and, from left, Patrick Whitesell, Rick Rosen, Tom Strickler and Ari Emanuel.

Agents Replaying a Hollywood Drama

By MICHAEL CIEPLY
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

ONCE upon a time in Hollywood, a band of rebels left a lumbering old talent agency to start a hot little company of their own — and in a dozen years or so managed to reach the top of the heap.

Twice upon a time, actually.

Just as Michael Ovitz and his peers walked away from the William Morris Agency to found Creative Artists Agency more than 30 years ago, Ariel Z. Emanuel and three associates left International Creative Management in 1995 to found Endeavor.

Creative Artists, under Mr. Ovitz and the people who succeeded him after he left in the mid-’90s, has long been the talent industry’s leader, staking its claim as a voracious (and, some detractors said during the Ovitz years, sometimes thuggish) conglomerate that changed the way talent is bought and sold here.

Along the way, Endeavor became Creative Artists’ doppelgänger. With only a third as many agents and a much smaller client list, the junior agency is known for the sort of quick thinking, ferocity and barely bridled ambition that carried Creative Artists to the top.

But Endeavor now has to show that it has staying power, and how it accomplishes that task offers a window onto the shifting landscape of talent brokering in Hollywood.

While Creative Artists is aggressively expanding into areas like sports and corporate consulting, Endeavor says it has smoothed its rougher, frat house edges and is trying to take advantage of ownership deals, in which Endeavor clients take a stake in their work rather than just being paid a handsome fee.

Mr. Ovitz says that Mr. Emanuel “and his crew have done the same thing we did, and people don’t really give that enough weight. In some strange, blasé way, it’s taken for granted.”

For his part, Mr. Emanuel says he takes nothing for granted. “I feel like we’re just getting started,” he says in an interview in the hilltop home of one of his partners, Patrick Whitesell.

Message from Writer/Director Troy Duffy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePT9VOI2FgU

`Dark Knight’ Sets Weekend Record With $155.34M

By DAVID GERMAIN
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES
Batman has sent Spidey packing as king of Hollywood’s box-office superheroes.
“The Dark Knight” took in a record $155.34 million in its first weekend, topping the previous best of $151.1 million for “Spider-Man 3″ in May 2007 and pacing Hollywood to its biggest weekend ever, according to studio estimates Sunday.

“We knew it would be big, but we never expected to dominate the marketplace like we did,” said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which released “The Dark Knight.” The movie should shoot past the $200 million mark by the end of the week, he said.

Hollywood set an overall revenue record of $253 million for a three-day weekend, beating the $218.4 million haul over the weekend of July 7, 2006, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

“This weekend is such a juggernaut,” said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, whose musical “Mamma Mia!” debuted at No. 2 with $27.6 million.

Factoring in higher admission prices, “Spider-Man 3″ may have sold slightly more tickets than “The Dark Knight.”

At 2007’s average price of $6.88, “Spider-Man 3″ sold 21.96 million tickets over opening weekend. Media By Numbers estimates today’s average movie prices at $7.08, which means “The Dark Knight” would have sold 21.94 million tickets.

Revenue totals for “The Dark Knight” could change when final numbers are released Monday.

The movie’s release was preceded by months of buzz and speculation over the performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, Batman’s nemesis. Ledger, who died in January from an accidental prescription-drug overdose, played the Joker as a demonic presence, his performance prompting predictions that the role might earn him a posthumous Academy Award nomination.

“The average opening gross of the last five `Batman’ movies is $47 million. This tripled that, and for a reason,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. “A big part of that was the Heath Ledger mystique and a phenomenal performance that absolutely deserves the excitement surrounding it.”

“The Dark Knight” reunites director Christopher Nolan with his “Batman Begins” star Christian Bale, whose vigilante crime-fighter is taunted and tested by Ledger’s Joker as the villain unleashes violence and chaos on the city of Gotham.

Overseas, “The Dark Knight” added $40 million in 20 countries where it began opening Wednesday, including Australia, Mexico and Brazil. The film opens in Great Britain this weekend and rolls out to most of the rest of the world over the next few weeks.

“The Dark Knight,” which cost $185 million to make, also broke the “Spider-Man 3″ record for best debut in IMAX large-screen theaters with $6.2 million. “Spider-Man 3″ opened with $4.7 million in IMAX cinemas.

“Every single show is sold out,” said Greg Foster, IMAX chairman and president. “We’re adding shows as much as we can, but we’re at 100 percent capacity.”

On opening day Friday, “The Dark Knight” also took in more money than previously counted, Fellman said. The film pulled in a record $67.85 million, up nearly $1.5 million from the studio’s estimates a day earlier.

The previous opening-day record also had been held by “Spider-Man 3″ with $59.8 million.

‘DARK KNIGHT’: RECORD $67+M FRIDAY; Smashes Biggest Single Day B.O. Gross; Could Crush Best 3-Day Weekend Record

SATURDAY 3PM: Well, look who’s laughing now! Warner Bros, because The Dark Knight’s Friday opening was even bigger than first thought, as final numbers come in — not just $66.4M but $67+M in North American gross from a record-setting wide release of 4,366 theaters. That includes the record-setting $18.5M in midnight-to-3AM shows from a smaller pool of 3,040 venues. Now Warner Bros has smashed the record for the biggest midnight show ever (better than the $16.9M set by 2005’s Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith then playing in 2,915 venues), and the biggest single day gross ever (better than the $59.8M set by May 4, 2007’s Spider-Man 3 in 4,252 venues, including midnight shows). So what about the weekend total? “$153M to $160M — it all depends on Saturday results,” my Warner Bros insider just told me. That would be ANOTHER record-smasher!

Welcome to the Wormwood Society

FIRST NUMBERS! ‘Dark Knight’ Midnight Shows Broke ‘Star Wars: Sith’ Figures

FRIDAY 7AM: Warner Bros is well on its way to making Hollywood history this weekend. That’s because its opening comic book caper The Dark Knight is already on its way to breaking records left and right today even as it’s still sparking a ticket-selling frenzy across North America. I’ve just been told that the latest Batman installment’s midnight shows broke the record of $16 million set by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. “Over $17 million, and still counting,” my insider says this morning. I should have final midnight numbers soon. Across North America, theater owners are working feverishly to squeeze in more screenings to meet voracious moviegoer demand. (Photo by Jim Stevenson of audiences arriving at Hollywod’s Arclight Theater for the first showing of Dark Knight).

Fandango, the largest online ticketseller, has just announced that Dark Knight has jumped to No. 2 on its Top 10 List of Advance Ticket-Sellers. The service is now selling an average of nearly 10 tickets per second for the pic during peak periods, an extraordinary figure which underscores Hollywood’s belief that not just the individual but also the overall 3-day non-holiday box office record is going down this weekend.

Cruel Teaser Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/user/smokingnomeprod

ScriptGirl Report 07.11.08

http://www.youtube.com/user/scriptgirl411

Mattel is releasing a Barbie based on Hitchcock’s classic 1963 thriller, THE BIRDS

Comic-Con is SOLD OUT!