EXCLUSIVE: I am interrupting my personal days to give you this scoop: it’s not clear who is running The Firm or whether it will survive beyond tonight. CEO Jeff Kwatinetz just left the management and production company “to do his own thing”, my insider tells me. “He’s expected to start his own music, film and television management firm and film and TV production company. But it’s unclear who takes over running The Firm assuming that people do.” New information coming in to me is that Kwatinetz, one of the most secretive men in the entertainment biz, was supposed to leave The Firm and go his separate way at the same time that principals Rick Yorn, Julie Yorn and Dave Baram (also the president/COO) did during the week of October 19th. But I’m told there was some “legal obligation” that prevented Kwatinetz from exiting at that time. Now Kwatinetz will be leaving with unspecified clients and personnel.
The rumor mill has been working overtime about the futures of The Firm and its Harvard-educated lawyer Kwatinetz ever since Rick Yorn departed. While Kwatinetz quickly issued a statement indicating there were no hard feelings — “I am sorry to lose Rick as a partner, but I remain proud to call him a dear friend. I wish him well” — tip after tip has come in to me of possible litigation by ex-Firmers Rick Yorn, Julie Yorn, Dave Baram and Constance Schwartz (who reps Snoop Dogg and was a bright marketing mind there before recently leaving) to force Kwatinetz to dissolve The Firm. There also have been allegations about The Firm’s imminent bankruptcy, or its eventual eviction from its Wilshire Boulevard offices because of a year’s worth of unpaid rent, not to mention stories about Kwatinetz’s personal behavior creating a professional nightmare at The Firm. Both sides have denied these rumors to me for weeks. So it’s all the more interesting that at this point in time the future of The Firm is up in the air.
So in just a scant few weeks, The Firm has now lost its CEO Kwatinetz as well as its president/COO Dave Baram, who spent nine years in that post until he announced on October 21st he was joining the Yorns in their new management and production company. Baram also co-founded the investment fund VMG Equity Partners which raised the money for consumer brand development and intellectual property creation projects that included the acquisition and re-launch of the footwear and apparel company Pony, Baram also is the manager of magician Criss Angel, whose “Mindfreak” shows have been a staple of Las Vegas and cable TV and who exited The Firm with Baram to join Yorn.
Yorn left The Firm to form a new management company with his ex sister-in-law Julie Yorn who will run the production side of the business. All of Rick’s day-to-day point clients went with him, which meant the loss to the firm of marquee names including Marty Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Benicio Del Toro, and Rick’s brother, musician Peter Yorn. Also joining the Yorns was their Firm colleague Jennifer Killoran, who co-manages DiCaprio and Timberlake with Rick as well as runs Leo’s production company Appian Way. Those clients following her also included director and writer Richard Kelly (Donny Darko), Robert Schwentke (Flight Plan), and writer John Orloff (A Mighty Heart). The Yorns’ deal with The Firm lapsed in June 2007, and Rick was coy about signing another contract. He’d been a principal since an internal restructuring in 2005 when Kwatinetz and Yorn renewed and extended their partnership. Yorn has been there ever since he rather famously left Addis/Wechsler and joined up with Michael Ovitz’s short-lived Artists Management Group, which after it fell on hard times was then sold to The Firm in 2002. The purchase moved The Firm from a music mangement company into the heady up-and-down world of movie and TV management and production. But it also left the company up to its eyeballs in debt.
Kwatinetz from then on found himself knocking down rumors that Yorn was about to leave the company. Many doubted that the Yorns were going to stay long-term, but few knew he was anchored in place in part by a business debt personally backed by the company’s partners, including Kwatinetz, Baram and Yorn himself. In 2004, Kwatinetz, with prodding from investor Thomas H. Lee Partners, explored a plan to unite with Irving Azoff, the powerful music manager who at the time repped the Eagles, Christina Aguilera, Jewel, and others. The deal would have paid The Firm an estimated $60 million. But Kwatinetz stupidly balked at the prospect of having his authority diluted. The Firm’s problem was that its CEO dreamed big but rarely delivered in recent years. He had made a name for himself early on with several smart moves in the music biz: The Firm was, for example, the driving force behind a deal in which EMI and big concert promoter Live Nation paid Korn $27 million to create a separate corporation that oversaw and shared in the profits from sales of the band’s records, concert tickets, and merchandise. After buying Ovitz’s firm, Kwatinetz talked about grand schemes to cross-breed actors, musicians, advertisers and other ventures in new business lines. But The Firm never developed into a true Hollywood powerhouse.
It’s also interesting to note that The Firm survived a massive exodus of execs and clients back in 2005 when, JoAnne Colonna, a manager of the company’s film talent department, left with her clients that includes Anna Paquin, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brittany Murphy (Kwatinetz’s one-time fiance), and Brendan Fraser. Only weeks before, her co-manager, Aleen Keshishian, had also left with clients Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Laura Linney and Freddie Prinze Jr. And those moves followed the departures of the co-managers of the music department when Simon Renshaw took with him the Dixie Chicks, Clay Aiken and Anastacia, and Andy Gould left with Rob Zombie. But the most recent exits of the Yorns and Baram were a major, and perhaps fatal, blow. Now with Kwatinetz having left, The Firm looks to be on its last legs.
I’ve always been curious why the Yorns always move in tandem.
Donny Darko = Donnie Darko
Is Adam Schulman going to work for Yorn? Haven’t heard his name yet…
The Firm just turner into The Form(er).
Finally happened… and what IS the Firm w/out Kwatinetz? The Firm had always hoped to become a media conglom (I was there in the early 00s and that was the talk even then) and the AMG purchase was to move it in that direction. But JK has always been too much of loose cannon (yelling and posturing rarely breeds confidence) and the Yorns like money & autonomy; if truly the Firm is on the brink of bankruptcy, that would’ve been the final nail to scare the Yorns out. So it goes back to, “Just what IS the Firm without Kwatinetz?” Who’s left? Schulman? Boniello?
Rick and Julie Yorn (and Pete Yorn- the musician who is Rick’s brother) have always been overrated. They all make me yawn. I remeber when Pete was launching his career and how Rick and Julie and everyone at CAA was comparing Pete to Bruce Springsteen and heralding Pete Yorn as the new Bruce. I have a big distaste for the Yorns. They all make me YAWN !
Well, at least now I know why I have been unable to collect my paycheck for work done for The Firm this summer–after weeks of lies about unprocessed paperwork and CFOs who were out of town on business.
Is Pete Katsis still over there? What’s going to happen to him? I heard he was the best thing over there in the music dept.
To The Yawns:
Couldn’t agree more. Peter Yorn is not Bruce Springsteen. He’s an average songwriter and if it was the time of hype he would not even be on the radar. You are right. The Yorns are The Yawns.
Thank you.
I’m not all that surprised by the long-anticipated collapse and demise of The Firm – after all, Kwatinetz has made a “career” out of all talk, no delivery, all bark, no bite. Some in the talent management world may recall back in the mid-90s when then-Gallin Morey Associates managers Kwatinetz and Michael Green sued Sandy Gallin for alleged “sexual harrassment” charges to get out of their contract and not make good on paying owed commissions to GMA. It was a cheap, homophobic, low-blow scam that set the tone for all Kwatinetz’s business affairs going forward. Good riddance! The Firm has finally gone soft.
Pete Yorn as the new Bruce
Man, there was a pipe dream. He wasn’t even the new John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
I dig this kind of stuff- cuz Doug may just be the dude to “get” the new model- and that new model is lots of work- without the glam or salaries- it’s about music and artist development- it’s about radical honesty-
hopefully one of these dudes like Jeff or Ovitz or another dude with cash will see this and invest in talented indie folk- who will work, work work for love
of music-
Seriously? The guy who wrote “A Mighty Heart?” That was the coldest read I have ever read EVER. Guy’s a hack.
Looks like the karmic vending maching has finally found Kwatinetz. The stories past employees could tell about his repeated childlike tantrums, drug abuse, and rotten behavier in general, would certainly justify any partner leaving. A lot of abused associates, interns, and assistants are certainly getting the last laugh. In order to be human, one must begin by treating others as humans Jeff.
If Jeff is such a jerk, How in the hell did he get so far, so fast? I mean, I know Hollywood, but he must of done a few things right. At least for a little while.
Why would Kwatinetz leave to do his own thing? Isn’t The Firm his OWN thing??
stop hating…u all have no idea what ur talking about, and how many moving peices there are to this puzzle. to simply make assumptions, and pass judgement without ACTUALLY knowing, is irresponsible and innapropriatte. All I will say on the matter is that I am honored to call Jeff a friend, and that it is my own personal opinion that he is not only BRILLIANT, but MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY, a really good person.
The only thing that doesn’t make Jeff’s demise perfect….is that Michael Green isn’t going to land on skid row with him. When 2 guys are so rotten that they make Gallin and Morey look like decent guys…that’s scary!!!
What happens to P. Katsis, not a harder working mgr in the biz, a wonderful person and loyal beyond belief to JK?
When you’re a FRONT, you act your part to the best of your ability (assuming you have any). When you’re no longer needed as a FRONT, the company is taken down and you leave “to do your own thing.”
Stop drinking all that HATERADE!!! Jeff is a FORCE OF NATURE, whom isn’t gonna get knocked out by a couple of lousy punches (which by the way were fueled by the press, & the town gossip mill to no end). But it doesnt matter what you all think anyway, its MIND OVER MATTER baby- Those who mind, DONT MATTER, & those who matter, DONT MIND. So why dont u all just stop taking other peoples inventory, and focus on keeping ur own side of the street clean, cuz thats exactly what jeff does.
Those of you who have not dealt with or more specifically worked for this guy can’t imagine what he is like. I’m sure he is unbelievably great to his friends, since they can most likely do something for him. To his employees (I was his primary assistant of the three he had at the time) he is a deplorable human being. He treated us as if we were lower than scum, and even in his better moments (read: not high, which seemed rare) was a grade A tyrant and A-Hole. I have been accused of witholding calls from him intentionally, stealing from him, and was fired on a day when he fired all three of his assistants in one fell swoop because one of his business decisions had been publicly derided by the national media. He is a megalomaniac, bad person, who karma has hopefully found and will treat poorly going forward. I can only hope the old adage of “what who you step on on the way up, because they’re the same people who will kick you on the way down” holds true in this case. Like it or not, I do not feel bad for wishing ill on him, and I am certainly not alone, as there are countless (>50 that I can name) former and current employees of the Firm who hope that nothing good comes to him.
I second the opinion of an earlier poster concerning Pete Katsis that he is hard working, talented and decent manager who has against his better judgement been loyal to Jeff for far too long. Hopefully, he not only lands on his feet following this, but can use this to propel himself further in the opposite direction of the tyrant Jeff.
The Firm hasn’t made money in years. It was a total front and a joke. Now everyone knows it.
“When you’re a Front, you’re a Front all the waaaay – from your first cigarette to your last dying daaaay!”
(repeat as many times as necessary)
Good riddens Kwatman. Total prick to work for….