Latest in Moguls

Lore in my wife’s family says that her mother, a beautiful Jewish immigrant fleeing grief in the Ukraine about a century ago, ran into someone named Carl Laemmle on a ship crossing the Atlantic. As the story goes, Laemmle asked her to check in with his still-young Universal film company, as she might have a future in…

A tale of Big Media is coming to cable. Continuing its recent moves toward original scripted series, Bravo is developing the drama Moguls. The series will follow the professional and personal challenges of a media boss and his family. "Moguls will be similar in tone to The West Wing," an insider says. While the series…

Sure, every Oscar weekend there are the Friday night agency parties — Ari Emanuel’s WME fete, and Jim Berkus” UTA party for the Coen Brothers, and Bryan Lourd’s CAA bash (where the valet parkers screwed up the parking situation so badly that the Triple-A crowd had up to a 2-hour wait for their cars). But the place to…

EXCLUSIVE: I’ve just learned that five well-known Hollywood Democrats — David Geffen, Bob Iger, Peter Chernin, Haim Saban, and Ari Emanuel — are hosting a November 4th fundraiser for Ari’s brother Rahm Emanuel in his bid to become Chicago’s next mayor. Rahm, a former Democratic U.S. Representative from Illinois’ 5th…

UPDATE: The Walt Disney Co was the last major studio and network to report quarterly earnings, and its fiscal 3rd quarter profit rose 40% on the strong box office grosses from Pixar’s Toy Story 3, Marvel’s Iron Man 2, and Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland 3D. As promised, here is an earnings roundup showing that Big…

Carl Icahn might not be crazy about Lionsgate co-chairman/CEO Jon Feltheimer and the rest of the indie studio’s management team, but MIPCOM loves him. He’s been named MIPCOM’s 2010 Personality of the Year. Feltheimer was been cited for “his leadership at the helm of Lionsgate and for driving creative productions and…

Full story coming…

EXCLUSIVE: To overhear Jeffrey Katzenberg’s private conversations these days, Comcast supposedly wants to buy DreamWorks Animation and make him head of NBC Universal. But at last week’s Camp Allen — Sun Valley’s annual Alllen & Co investment conference attended by the Who’s Who of tech, Internet, entertainment, and…

My pal Claudia Eller has a funny little scoop on the LA Times website about how Starz chief Chris Albrecht made a Blackberry mistake that led to Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett’s exit from Overture. (So I gotta ask: is this why moguls like Alan Horn and Ron Meyer refuse to use smart phones or even computers?) On July 1…

Hollywood is jetting to the annual Allen & Co investment conference in Sun Valley starting today. I’ve just been emailed the in-room schedule by a participant, and this year showbiz is back in favor because of an “Entertainment Panel” consisting of Barry Diller, Peter Chernin, Jeff Katzenberg, and Bobby Kotick (the…

I’m being told there’s really nothing new with these explanatary conversations. And, anyway, Lionsgate can’t do any kind of deal with MGM unless the studio management brokers some settlement with 32% shareholder Carl Icahn, who has made it clear he won’t approve any big buys by the studio right now. Strange that this…

Carl Icahn surprised almost everybody when he completed his $7 per share tender offer deadline with control of 32% of Lionsgate, shares.  Hollywood immediately feared the indie studio would be unable to continue business as usual, because Lionsgate’s $340 million credit facility with JP Morgan Chase Bank contained a…