Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency [9780062441386]

Overview

“Magisterial. ... A must read for anyone who wants to work in Hollywood or just know how Hollywood works.”
   — The Hollywood Reporter

A New York Times bestseller, now updated with an afterword and exclusive new material

From the #1 bestselling author behind acclaimed oral histories of Saturday Night Live and ESPN comes "the most hotly anticipated book [in decades]" (Variety): James Andrew Miller's irresistible insider chronicle of the modern entertainment industry, told through the epic story of Creative Artists Agency (CAA)—the ultimate power player that has represented the world's biggest stars and shaped the landscape of the entire media industry, from film and television to comedy, music, and sports.

Started in 1975, when five bright and brash upstarts left creaky William Morris to form their own innovative talent agency, CAA would come to revolutionize Hollywood, representing everyone from Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and Steven Spielberg to Jennifer Lawrence, J.J. Abrams, Will Smith, and Brad Pitt. Over the next decades its tentacles would spread aggressively into sports, advertising, and digital media. Powerhouse, the definitive oral history of a Hollywood revolution, is the fascinating, no-holds-barred saga of that ascent. Drawing on unprecedented and exclusive access to the men and women who built and battled with CAA—including co-founders Michael Ovitz and Ron Meyer and rivals like Ari Emanuel of William Morris Endeavor—as well as the stars themselves, Miller spins a unique and unforgettable business biography—a tale of brilliance, ambition, betrayal, and outrageous success.

How did Michael Ovitz and four renegades build an empire that would rule Hollywood for decades?_

• The Rise of an Empire: Follow the five young agents who walked out of William Morris with nothing but card tables and a plan to conquer the entertainment business.
• Hollywood Power Players: Go inside the rooms where the careers of stars like Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Steven Spielberg were forged by super-agents Michael Ovitz and Ron Meyer.
• Insider Stories: Based on unprecedented access, this oral history reveals the untold tales of ambition, genius, and betrayal that defined a generation of Hollywood dealmaking.
• A Hollywood History: Uncover the rivalries, like the one with Ari Emanuel, and the billion-dollar deals that shaped the modern media landscape, from the perspective of the people who lived it.