Latest in Michael Ovitz

Hollywood powerbrokers past and present officially said goodbye to one of their own Sunday. Bert Fields, who died August 8 at the age of 93, was celebrated today by clients, family and colleagues at a memorial service in Santa Monica. Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Estrich and Michael Ovitz…

Wrapbook, a financial services startup whose tools are used for production payroll, has released a new mobile app on the heels of raising $100 million in Series B funding. Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo and Michael Ovitz are among the backers of the company. According to data provided to Deadline, the company’s workforce…

Molten, an enterprise cloud startup aiming to deliver a comprehensive set of insights for clients across several parts of the evolving streaming marketplace, has raised $7 million in seed funding. Initial backers of the company include actor, producer and entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and CAA…

Jeffrey Katzenberg's WndrCo and CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz are among the investors in production payroll startup Wrapbook, which just raised $27 million in Series A financing. In a blog post, co-founder and CEO Ali Javid said other investors include Equal Ventures, and Uncork Capital and venture capital firm…

EXCLUSIVE: Zoe Saldana will star in Sabaya, a fact-based thriller that Reed Morano (The Handmaid’s Tale) will direct based on a William Monahan script about the unlikely circumstances that made possible a 2015 U.S. Special Forces raid that killed a top ISIS leader and started the downfall of the radical Islamic…

EXCLUSIVE: When Anthony Pellicano walks out of a California prison tomorrow, the once notorious Hollywood P.I. will be welcomed by some of the biggest names in Hollywood with dual gifts of deep appreciation and cold hard cash. Ending a 15-year sentence behind bars on his 75th birthday, the soon-to-be former inmate of…

This week's whirl of parties celebrating awards season constitutes "an over-caffeinated exercise in suppressed schadenfreude," an analyst friend confided to me. In coming days scores of runners-up will be called upon to celebrate the triumphs of a tiny group of winners. The reality: Most of us will take greatest…

Michael Ovitz was ever the master of both confession and concealment — the shared confidence that really wasn't, or the backdoor whisper that had to be denied. When I was pursuing him, in a reportorial sense, for a 1986 Wall Street Journal profile, for instance, he struck a pose of complete resistance. But he also had…

Book titles posing a question are considered risky in the publishing business, especially if they're widely hyped. A case in point: Who Is Michael Ovitz? published this week by Portfolio/Penguin. The book was, in fact, written by Ovitz, prompting some of his former colleagues and clients to propose an alternate title…

Heading to a book party for screenwriter-novelist Tom Epperson's latest, a South American journalistic thriller called Roberto To The Dark Tower Came, I got to wondering: Will there ever be another great Hollywood book? You know, the kind that makes you catch your breath, slap the beach chair, and gasp, "Did they…

Michael Ovitz is suing Fireman’s Fund Insurance over a legal settlement recently reached with Deadline editor Anita Busch, claiming the carrier is refusing to pay its fair share of the proceeds to end the matter. The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court today, alleges breach of contract. Ovitz agreed to the Busch…

Almost 16 years after Anita Busch discovered a dead fish on the shattered front window of her car, along with the threatening word “Stop”, the journalist has come to a settlement with former CAA boss Mike Ovitz. “The matter has been resolved between our client and Michael Ovitz,” Busch attorney Evan Marshall told…