NOT DEADLINE...separates the truth from fiction (every Tuesday) in entertainment news

Bob Iger is a captain of industry in the entertainment business and in the world of business in general…and how he got there is one of those Horatio Algier stories.

In interviews with several media outlets, he mentioned starting off humbly as a weatherman in Ithaca, New York before latching onto the lowest rung of what is now the Walt Disney Company as a studio supervisor for the ABC network. He outworked his colleagues and ingratiated himself to as many people as he could in the name of opportunity.  Sure enough, he rose through the ranks of ABC until he eventually sat atop the throne and led the charge to acquire iconic brands like Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar…and to launch the successful streaming service Disney+.

Fifteen years into his reign, Iger was inspired to write a book about the learned life lessons that paid off with incredible success and good fortune. Iger outlined 10 core principles that were/are foundational to his leadership style.

The one we’d like to focus on is TRUE INTEGRITY–a sense of knowing who you are and being guided by your own clear sense of right and wrong.

Simply put: Iger doesn’t practice what he preaches.

Why is this the case? Because Not Deadline thinks (just an opinion) that Iger lost all of his integrity in 2012 and thought that no one in a million years would figure out what he did…because if they had, he would have been forced to step down immediately in shame, would have never survived long enough to repeatedly re-insert himself as the CEO for replacement, and would have never been heard from again until his obituary was written.

What may have triggered his egregious disregard of right and wrong? Star Wars.

Iger had consolidated so much power by 2012 and was so eager to flex the relationships he’d brokered…that he figured the greatest way to show it all off would be to keep all things Star Wars a complete secret until October 2012 when it was announced that Disney had acquired Lucasfilm, and then again until the hiring of JJ Abrams announcement in January 2013. All along, no one knew.

How could Iger have pulled off this magical feat? Let’s say you want a 0.1% chance of anyone in the entertainment community or in the world uncovering or discovering anything about the status of STAR WARS as relates to Disney? Iger and his super legal team discussed what other soulless persons and companies would be willing to play ball with them. Answer: those like Iger who thought that abusing their power and cheating the system would be the coolest thing ever.

Accordingly, the below steps would have been undertaken in some form (particularly as relates to the hiring of talent).

STEP ONE: the phrase STAR WARS could not appear anywhere in writing in any form for anyone to intercept or leak to anyone in the world. To do this, they would reference a phrase/name or unrelated project (that was code for Star Wars) in any emails or paperwork or contracts.

STEP TWO: Iger wouldn’t want anything in writing directly traceable to Disney because if it was traced—someone could and would leak it. Iger would disguise it to not just puff his chest but to also avoid the inevitable bombardment of calls from everyone in town advocating for this person or that person because he already had his targets in sight.

STEP THREE: Iger would have identified the talent to be hired and identified Star Wars projects they would be hired for…and then find some unrelated projects the specific talent might be working on or could be enlisted to work on and disguise (double contract) the documents under everyone’s noses… BUT, those who were part of the negotiation would know the paramount reason for the supposed project would really be about STAR WARS

STEP FOUR: Iger would have reached out as daring and wide as he could go. He wouldn’t just recruit a major tv/film financing entity, but he would also enlist a major agency and law firms who would assist in facilitating and the talent of course. and then, the granddaddy of them all—a college/university willing to put its reputation at risk as a front for deal papering and Iger’s name.

STEP FIVE: Iger would not make any Star Wars related announcements related to talent until the deals were done for not just the first trilogy of films, but for the second trilogy as well. Dollars terms.

STEP SIX: Iger released an announcement to the world that JJ Abrams had committed to the first trilogy (much earlier than January 2013) and others not referenced in that announcement.

One cannot make this stuff up. It’s better than the most creative artist could ever imagine…and that’s what makes these ‘What If…’ articles so much fun to write.

In the future, we hope to breakdown in more detail how each step would have been taken with methodical precision.

Have a great week.

Candle Media’s strategy is crumbling as we speak and it is shocking and unexplainable given how many intelligent people who knows the ins and outs of content are involved.

Think of Candle Media as the sun. A multibillion dollar backed entity that came onto the scene in 2021 to buy production companies and content in the name of brand building and supplying content.

Orbiting the sun are two planets.

BlackRock is a multi-trillion-dollar asset controlling entity. They have their hands in every important player and company in the world. They are highly selective about the people they put their money behind and they don’t back losers. They provided much of the funds to bring Candle Media into existence. They are also publicly held. (side note: there are possibly two other funds who invested in Candle Media: Ares and HPS).

Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs. Co-founders of Candle Media. Both are Disney lifers with impressive backgrounds and experience who rose through the ranks. Mayer launched Disney+ and was instrumental in the acquisitions of Marvel, Pixar, Fox Studios, and Lucasfilm. The man knows about delivering content so much so that he is still on the Disney payroll as Iger’s strategic adviser. Staggs was the Chairman of Parks, Experiences and Products and then the CFO. Also, a smart guy on the business side, he consults Iger as well. Per an article in the Wrap by Sharon Waxman in 2019, neither man is known for their creative intelligence. They are numbers guys and they know the streaming/distribution/brand landscape more than just about anyone else in the business.

Put all of these smart numbers guys with billions of dollars together and surely the first big moves right out of the gate and immediate PR announcements would be a series of purchases of established brands that generate the kind of cash flow that can offset the riskier low revenue growth company acquisitions that are not over-reliant on smooth sailing and could be neutralized by union strikes and otherwise. It’s business 101.

Instead, Candle Media did the exact opposite. They led off the PR game by negotiating against themselves and wildly overpaying for an early-stage not even close to global company called Hello Sunshine (co-founded by Reese Witherspoon) with not a lot of cash flow, no ownership of IP (it did have a book club), and a brand that wasn’t bulletproof. Price paid? Enough for Hello Sunshine to have a reported valuation of $900 million (other reports say $500million worth of Blackstone equity was put into the pot, but we’ll never know what the exact number was because Candle Media is a privately held company).

To this day, when asked, Mayer insists it was a good long-term acquisition (even though we don’t believe that he believes that). The evidence clearly shows that the acquisition wasn’t and isn’t and won’t be justifiable because the company does not have enough money-making ancillaries to weather any particular storm.

Ok, then. Question: how did Candle Media and Hello Sunshine come together aka what was the negotiation process between Candle Media and Hello Sunshine that ended in such a high investment/valuation? Kevin Mayer has curiously never been asked. Were other companies in the mix to buy Hello Sunshine? Apple dipped in their toe according to Hello Sunshine’s CEO Sarah Harden (formerly CEO of Otter Media which owned Hello Sunshine before Candle Media bought them) on CNBC the morning after the announcement…but, we do not buy this claim. First, Apple is not in the business of buying companies like Hello Sunshine. Apple acquires companies involved with technology and software and content and anything else that fuels the products they make. Second, Apple wasn’t mentioned in any other media outlet or by Kevin Mayer, so we will assume it was just Candle Media as the lone interested party…which makes Sarah Harden’s claim a curious one.

Next question: Who did Candle Media negotiate with? Was CAA involved in any way because they rep Reese Witherspoon and former CAA agent Jim Toth who was also an equity partner? Was it with AT&T who bought Otter Media who initially funded Hello Sunshine? Was it WarnerMedia who oversaw Otter Media for AT&T? Was it several of these entities working together to negotiate with Candle Media? It’s strange that the selling entity has never been mentioned given how large the deal was.

Why are we drilling down so deep into this Hello Sunshine situation? Because it has to be asked whether Candle Media negotiated against itself and overpaid by design. Sounds crazy, but consider their other questionable acquisitions/investments to date…

Candle Media curiously bought a 10% stake in CAA-repped Overbrook Entertainment when Will Smith was on the back nine of his career and his company didn’t own any IP or film rights or otherwise. What did it cost for the 10%? Why not a higher percentage? What’s the valuation of Overbrook as a result (99% of the time, the announcement tells us. Why not here as well?). On a related note:  10% is a very interesting percentage in the agency commission world (we’ll get to that below)…not to mention Candle Media is not in the 10% ownership business. They are in the ‘buy the whole enchilada’ business. This transaction made zero sense then and negative sense now. It feels like there was something else going on there.

Candle Media also spent at least $100 million (and it could be $150 million if certain targets are hit) acquiring ATTN (social change content provider) which was a content provider funded by TPG/Evolution Media Capital/CAA. ATTN: wasn’t profitable as of five years ago and while it’s a nice story about a socially conscious company done good, where does ATTN: fit into everything else that Candle Media does? Moonbug doesn’t need it. Does Hello Sunshine? Was there any interest in synergy? Who knows?

Candle Media’s arguably smartest buy (but again at too high a valuation) is the only one that sort of makes sense. Moonbug has tons of ways to make money. Tons of Youtube channels and subscribers. Checks all the investment boxes…BUT, setting this aside…

It just seems like money has flowed directly or indirectly in a certain direction thanks to indefensible deals and it begs the two-part question: What’s this all about and why if the acquisitions aren’t logical? Maybe, it’s about increasing the valuation and/or lining the pockets of entities who benefitted directly or indirectly from the buyout/investment action? Is something about Hello Sunshine benefitting the entities getting paid not just for the specific deal but for something else unrelated to the subject of the deal in some way? It’s strange. It’s hard for Not Deadline to explain…but, there’s something interesting here (that 10% of Overbrook deal sort of dangles in the wind). An entire article can be written about deals made for one thing that are not just about that deal, but for other things as well…we might do that for fun.

Quickly, what if we go the other way? What if the truth is that Candle Media paid low nine figures or high eight figures for Hello Sunshine and simply padded the value with a publicly announced value that wasn’t real? This would be a smokescreen to inflate the valuation of certain companies who benefit from the sale. Why inflate valuation? Maybe, it again benefits the companies when they are in turn negotiating with other companies interested in buying a piece of them? It sort of becomes this weird circular cycle of peacocks strutting their feathers to make themselves more attractive to other peacocks who want to spend money.

Lastly, everyone would ask: Why would Candle Media do this? What’s in it for them? Obviously, money, but from where? Unclear. They have untold billions of dollars behind them. They have three different equity funds to choose from. They have relationships all over the place and probably do all sorts of stuff that is never announced nor will it ever be known because they are privately held. Maybe, they move money from one company to the other, almost like a messenger. We may never know unless a nugget of gold rises to the surface from the muck over the coming months and years. Let’s see…

Sure, critics of this article can toss out phrases like “conspiracy theorist nutjob” and “wears a tinfoil hat” and “wild speculator”, but there is no disputing that Candle Media’s rationale for the companies they bought and the prices they paid are indefensible no matter how good or bad the economic times were…which means that any and all speculation is fair game. What is said versus what actually happened does not reconcile at all.

Which brings us back to Candle Media’s crumbling empire. It has been swift and unrelenting and no one is posing alternative reasons beyond what we hear on the surface…so, Not Deadline has. Why not?

If anyone reading this article disagrees wholeheartedly with the thesis, then come up with something more plausible and write about it…but, please don’t tell us the tale about a bunch of really smart guys who made a bunch of really dumb short sighted decisions. Even Kevin Mayer would find that naïve.

In recent interviews for his new film TRAP coming out next month, M. Night stressed the importance of being ‘original’ and not relying on IP (other source material) …which is a rather curious thing for him to say given how many of his films were shall we say at the very least ‘inspired’ by existing IP. For example:

Sixth Sense arguably borrowed plot and the twist ending from an episode of ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? The Village arguably borrowed plot and the twist ending from the novel RUNNING OUT OF TIME. The Servant arguably borrowing from THE TRUTH ABOUT EMANUEL. Old was an adaptation of a graphic novel titled OLD. Last Airbender was based on an animated series of the same name. After Earth was based on a Will Smith idea that M. Night co-wrote with someone else. Knock on the Cabin was based on an existing script based on the novel of the same name.

So, perhaps when M. Night refers to ‘original’, he’s talking about the story behind the source material for THE WATCHERS, the recently released film produced by M. Night which was adapted and directed by his daughter, Ishana.

The film was adapted from the book of the same name, but the true author of this book feels like a riddle in search of an answer.

Let’s start with the credited author of the book–A.M. SHINE.

A.M.’s first novel Coldwood: the Haunted Man and Other Tales was published by Dark Hall Press (located in Rhode Island) in 2016. In interviews, A.M. spoke of how proud he was to have a book published in the same part of the world where Edgar Allen Poe and HP Lovecraft toiled.

And yet, when you search for the Dark Hall Press website, up comes darkhallpress.blogspot.com with the most recent blog dating way back to 2013, and then when you click on Darkhallpress.com below the blog, the IP address belongs to a bizarre Singapore related website called kudatogel…and when you try to order the book on Amazon, the landing page says the book is out of print. It’s bizarre that the book is not available for purchase in any format given it would get a huge sales boost thanks to The Watchers. And even more strange, the book is not mentioned in A.M.’s bio on the Bell Lomax Morgan agency website that reps him. It’s as if either the book was never written OR all copies were destroyed.

And what about A.M. SHINE’S explanation for how the novel for The Watchers came together. A.M. said in a Zoom interview with Forbidden Planet TV that it derived from an unpublished short story he had written over the past ten years (he’s not clear on when during that ten year span he wrote this specific short story). The ‘pre-The Watchers’ short story was about a dealer of rare birds who enjoys having them in cages and he stumbles upon a cabin and looks out the window and these creatures start to attack before they are held back by the older creature and so on. A.M. then reiterates during the interview that he never sent the short story to anyone even though he found the idea compelling. The idea might be compelling, but what’s even more compelling is that, as an aspiring author, he didn’t at the very least self-publish the short story. It would have attracted a lot of attention. And given his short stories were allegedly published by Dark Hall Press in 2016, one would think this could have been part of that.

How about all of the ideas and characters in THE WATCHERS? A.M. said in the same interview that the only character he had in mind was Mina and that the rest of the book came to him ‘on the fly’. That’s amazing. So much for outlining or doing much of anything before telling the story…and on a side note: it appeared to Not Deadline that A.M. did not have a firm grasp of his characters or storyline when he was being interviewed. It was all about ‘making shit up as he went along’ and he seemed uncertain and at a loss for words at times when probed for deeper meanings behind the characters and otherwise.

And how about the creative content in the THE WATCHERS novel? There are plot elements that bump up against THE VILLAGE which bumped up against the novel RUNNING OUT OF TIME which bumped up against CABIN IN THE WOODS. Instead of ‘those we do not speak of’ in THE VILLAGE, we have ‘those who are shapeshifting fairies’. It’s fascinating to see a riff on a riff on a riff. M. Night loves things to happen in threes so there’s that.

Speaking of M. Night’s love of trilogies, The Watchers is touted as the first in a potential trilogy of films. That’s equally interesting.

So, we’re pointing out all of these loose threads. Why should anyone care?

Answer: Because it could be that M. Night is an original, but not in the way we could have ever imagined…and that’s fascinating.

Let’s hypothesize. This is just Not Deadline’s opinion. Let’s say in the early days of M. Night’s career, he creatively ‘borrowed’ from others because internet searches were not as expansive and exhaustive for research and information…let’s say that plausible denial of access was harder to disprove.

And let’s say that overconfidence caught up with M Night. on THE VILLAGE when it became clear that borrowing from an established author was not the smartest move. He learns his lesson, but, at the same time, knows his best works borrow from other people’s work. So, he pivots and publicly acknowledge (and/or option) existing scripts and books if he has any concerns about crossing the copyright line…until he gets cocky again later on and resumes unacknowledged borrowing (our opinion…not fact)—this time from an existing film called THE TRUTH ABOUT EMANUEL upon which his Apple tv series THE SERVANT is arguably based. He gets sued and might very well lose at trial. We shall see…

Which brings us to a really cool conspiracy theory. Supposing A.M. Shine was more of a transcriber than an author? What if the Shymalans fed him the characters and the story? You might ask yourself: why would someone create IP if they could theoretically just say it’s made up? Answer: Wrapping ‘borrowings’ in self-generated source material provides an additional layer of creative protection against others who claim their work was ‘borrowed’.

For example, THE WATCHERS could be a West of Ireland version of a very famous paper written in 1973 by a renowned scientist named John Ball who suggested it was possible that extraterrestrials were observing humans much akin to animals in a zoo, and Mr. Ball went to great lengths to break things down. There was also a script set up at New Line’s parent Warner bros decades ago that had to do with humans being observed by aliens as if they were in a human zoo. And of course, there’s the ‘those we don’t speak of’ book Running out of Time that incorporates limited spaces and isolation and creatures in the night. And there’s ‘Cabin in the Woods’. These source materials are high profile, very specific reference points that no one would ever cop to (especially Running Out of Time)

There’s also another interesting wrinkle here. THE WATCHERS novel was a UK copyright and not a U.S. copyright…and copyright laws in the UK are much tougher to pierce. It would be yet another obstacle for an author in the U.S. who might think their material was wrapped inside another source written in the UK where copyright law violation thresholds are much lower than in America.

Which brings us to M. Night’s upcoming film TRAP. He says in interviews that he got the idea for this ‘Silence of the Lambs at a Taylor Swift concert as a big sting operation to capture a serial killer’ in part from the real life 1985 sting operation by U.S. Marshalls and the Police Department, whereby they invited unsuspecting criminals to a location to pick up Super Bowl tickets and where they were instead arrested (he said this in an interview with Empire online as well). This may be true, but there’s another IP that jumps out just as much…and that is Erik Larson’s amazingly unique novel DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY that tells the fictional tale of a serial killer having some fun at the World’s Fair. Just swap out the World’s Fair with a pop concert—and there you have it…

Long story short: whenever someone suggests that their story is based on public domain true stories, it is worth doing a deeper dive to see if there are fiction inspirations. It might not be the most exciting thing to do, but it will be if you obsess over solving riddles and puzzles like Not Deadline does.

One last question for another time: How might the Shymalans have stumbled onto A.M. Shine if they fed or influenced the story? One way could have been through A.M.’s agent. Maybe, the Shyamalans read something of A.M’s (maybe even a way too early not so good version of The Watchers.). Or maybe they were the only people who got to read A.M.’s Coldwood novel that disappeared into the ether.

We may never know all the answers, but that won’t stop Not Deadline from trying.

(Apologies in advance. The tone of this article will have some bite for reasons that become clear as the story plays out)

November 12th 2021 was a very important day in the life of Britney Spears. It was on this day that a judge formally terminated the conservatorship that had been in place since Britney’s father, Jamie Spears, petitioned the court and was named co-conservator on February 8th 2008.

The end of the conservatorship meant that Britney was free to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted with whomever she wanted in her personal and professional life. No longer was she beholden to her father or anyone else. This had to be a great thing. Yes? Not exactly.

In short order, she posted strange Instagram videos of herself wearing skimpy outfits and doing weird dances. She got pregnant by longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari whom she had dated since 2016. She suffered a miscarriage. She tied the knot with Sam. She assaulted Sam (which was reported in TMZ by ‘sources’ as an ongoing problem). She got divorced from Sam fourteen months after getting married to him. She played with what looked like real knives in a video. Her ex-husband got 100% custody of their two sons and fled to Hawaii to get as far away as financially, affordably possible. She cut off all communications with her immediate family. She wrote a book detailing the dark side of her life, which brought on a whole new set of problems for her and everyone that she torched in the book. A video surfaced of what appeared to be Britney in a restaurant talking to herself.

The post-conservatorship era sounds pretty bad. It must have been a lot worse when the Conservatorship was still active. Yes? Not exactly.

Britney still had at least ‘30% of the time’ custody of her kids. She had a relationship, albeit strained, with her family. She had Sam as her boyfriend. She didn’t (wasn’t allowed to??) get pregnant. She released some albums. She appeared as a guest judge on X factor. She did a successful residency in Vegas. She was slated to do more shows in Vegas but canceled because of mental issues brought on her father’s seriously illness. She challenged the conservatorship in 2019 and Jamie temporarily stepped down, but it was not terminated by the judge out of valid mental health concerns as related to Britney.

…which begs the question: Who thought it was a good idea, given Britney’s publicly and privately known mental health struggles, to put her in a position to fail?

In our opinion, it was Matthew Rosengart.

Rosengart is a very successful (former) federal prosecutor and trial attorney. He has represented a lot of high-profile clients who felt they were screwed out of money or defamed (Sean Penn). He has a perfect record when it comes to trials/settlements because he has a ‘burn down the house’ mentality and weaponizes the media to fire bombastic claims at whoever his client is suing.

Britney met Rosengart in 2020/early 2021.  She had expressed a desire to terminate the conservatorship because it was oppressive, illegal, it violated her personal rights, it reduced her to something that wasn’t human. She wasn’t allowed to get married. She wasn’t allowed to get pregnant.  There was also a documentary in the works about this very topic…and someone at some point pushed the two of these people together.

Some backstory on conservatorships in general is important before we circle back to Rosengart.

99% of the time, conservatorships are about family. A family member (usually on the older/elderly side) is incapable of handling his/her own affairs (some or all) and another family member or close friend/business associate is approved by the court to make those decisions. Courts do not approve or terminate these legal relationships without a thorough vetting of every possible fact and medical evaluation because there is so much sensitivity and history between those who are affected.

Invariably, over the course of time, if there is money involved (or sometimes, visitation rights (or both)), the non-conservators want access. The playbook that every litigator follows is to throw the kitchen sink at the conservator in an effort to get him/her replaced and/or the conservatorship terminated regardless of what is true and what is fiction. Words like fraud/negligence/self-dealing/battery/overstepping authority/terrible treatment/dictator/bullying/oppressive/unconstitutional. Do these fighting words sound familiar?

Rosengart loved the playbook because it played to his strengths. Blow up the other side because it’s a white hat fighting a black hat…except that he failed to recognize there were shades of gray all over the place. There was an existing (albeit dysfunctional) family unit still intact. There was an ex-husband/father and children involved. It wasn’t a kid overseeing a parent. It was the reverse. It wasn’t a kid trying to get a piece of the parent’s financial action. It was a kid having the money and the older person managing and paying himself (paying too much? To whom? Worthy of arguments in front of a judge. Agreed). It wasn’t a kid claiming that the parent was being abused. It was the kid claiming to be abused by the parent. It wasn’t a kid being kept at arm’s length from the parent. It was a kid with a dependent need for help from the trusted parent (before the kid suddenly didn’t trust the parent for reasons that only Britney and her inner circle know).

Which brings us to what Not Deadline considers the primary trait of a Hall of Fame litigator. Like a Triple Crown winning jockey, the H.O.F. litigator has several gears at their disposal to not just win the race, but to the keep horse healthily intact. They know when it’s time to sprint, when to run, when to trot, when to walk, and when to not race at all.

Rosengart believed it was always time to sprint and that cost his client (and immediate family and her friends and others) dearly.

He maneuvered to block requisite psychological evaluations. He maneuvered to block anyone in Jamie Spears’ camp from asking Britney questions in a formal setting. He maneuvered to stoke the public’s outrage by throwing gasoline on a spreading fire known as the ‘free Britney’ movement. He publicly accused Jamie Spears of violating every known constitutional right known to man (hyperbole, but you get the point). He did all of this in spite of likely knowing that Britney was not in a good headspace as evidenced by the videos and other eye-raising stuff that she put out there in the world during the 4-month window between the filed petition to terminate and the official date of termination. Did he have a mental evaluation performed on her to be sure that what she wanted was not just achieving her goal, but in her best interest? Did he stop to think at any point that while a full conservatorship might be too much, a limited conservatorship (which does exist in California) might be a more appropriate vehicle so she could ease into a normal life? Or, in the alternative, how about ANY kind of arrangement short of a conservatorship that might give Britney a shot at a smoother transition? Maybe, this was attempted. Maybe, this wasn’t. We’d like to know.

Rosengart’s ‘blow it up’ strategy didn’t end with the end of the conservatorship. Instead of advising Britney to turn off her social media platforms and to disappear for a while so she could find herself again, he negotiated a book deal in spite of knowing all the while that she had serious mental issues to work through and that it might not be in her best interest. He also thought it would be great to draft the prenup when he knew it might not be in her best interest to get married. He could have demurred on both counts given his conservatorship work was done.

Which brings us to the motivation for this article. Last week, Rosengart released a statement to the Hollywood Reporter that his lawyer client relationship with Britney Spears had ended because he had worked with her to achieve her goals, that he had untangled her from all litigation (that had mostly been started by him) and so on. He ended it with a wink and a nod. “As I’ve always said, the credit goes to Britney.” It was also hinted in the Hollywood Reporter article that the intention all along was for Rosengart’s services to have an expiration date. Sure, there was. Just a snarky opinion.

To us, this statement can be perceived as meaning one or more things and none of them are good. The first interpretation is that it’s self-serving promotion. Rosengart is putting himself on the moral pedestal for a case that concluded years prior. That’s weird. The second interpretation is that Rosengart is intimating that Britney’s goals were all that mattered regardless of whether it was in her best interest. Not good. The third interpretation is that Britney was becoming a stage 5 clinger who took up too much of his time and he wanted to publicly end the relationship. If true, not good. The fourth interpretation is that Rosengart was planting a legal defense flag because someone connected to Britney might come after him on grounds we aren’t yet aware of…the old “Yes, I destroyed familial relationships and reputations, but that was Britney’s goal.” Maybe, this is a stretch, but who knows? The fifth interpretation is that he is absolving himself of accountability. “Don’t blame me if she or anyone else thinks her life took a turn for the worse. The credit goes to Britney.”

Bottom line:  Rosengart remained undefeated in the courtroom as of November 12th 2021, but it was also on that same day he lost his first case outside of it…and it is because of this that his ‘former client’ has to crawl her way out of a deeper hole…in our opinion.

Puck.news was founded upon two principles that Matthew Belloni (and likely all the other journalists) cited in his decision to join. Journalist-owned and independence “to 100% serve our audience, not sponsors”. (https://puck.news/why-i-joined-puck-belloni/).

Less than three years later, Puck is a powerhouse media news organization populated by a murderer’s row of no less than seventeen top-notch reporters with rolodexes that rival (and beat) just about every other competing online news/podcast site. By extension, they have positioned themselves as an uncompromising and authoritative story-breaking group of insiders and it is this combination that has attracted tens of thousands of loyal subscribers who generate millions and millions of revenue for Puck …a number that will only continue to grow.

Seems cut and dry. Puck is what it says it is and what we think it is. Yes? Maybe? Just as with everything in life (and in entertainment news reporting in general), there are competing shades of gray and in the case of Puck, there are two shades. TPG and STANDARD INDUSTRIES (via one of their companies 40 NORTH MEDIA). These two shades of gray put up the $7 million in seed money that birthed Puck in 2021. On a side note: TPG also participated in the second round of Puck.news additional funds raising not too long ago.

What does all of this mean? Why should anyone care? Let’s flesh out the shades first.

Shade #1: TPG is a large multi-billion dollar publicly traded investment company that lists as active entertainment related business investments on their website: CAA (along with one of CAA’s investment arms, Evolution Media Capital…though, it’s unclear why both are ‘active’ investments if TPG sold its stake in CAA to the French company Artemis in the Fall 2023). VICE-MEDIA. STX (until April 2022). AZOFF MUSIC. CINESPACE STUDIOS. DIRECT TV. SLING. SPOTIFY. WINDRVR. On a related note: TPG’s co-founder, Jim Coulter, sits on Puck’s board of directors.

Shade #2: STANDARD INDUSTRIES is also a multi-billion-dollar investment vehicle that owns a lot of sub vehicles, one of which is 40 NORTH MEDIA which owns a globally influential marketing/advertising arm with several heavy hitter entertainment business clients https://www.fortynorthmedia.com/ : ROKU PARAMOUNT PLUTO TWITCH. AMAZON UNIVERSAL MUSIC LATIN ENTERTAINMENT. JLO. THE KARDASHIANS. On a fascinating note: 40 NORTH MEDIA which, interestingly enough, accepts Crypto. We are still trying to get our head around cryptocurrency as a concept.

Between these two investment behemoths, it’s evident that TPG and STANDARD INDUSTRIES have tentacles that run vast and run deep in the world of everything…so vast and so deep that it raises interesting questions about one of the key principles upon which Puck was built and, by extension, the brand it has curated. Call it that fine line where reality and perception get murky sometimes.

The tenet in particular that deserves analysis is one that Matthew Belloni experienced when he butted heads with the company that owns the Hollywood Reporter and left to join a media startup called Puck that 100% served its audience and not sponsors. This mattered because the rumor was that MRC was nixing stories in instances where it might negatively impact whatever relationship or otherwise that the company had with someone…and that was frustrating according to a Deadline article (https://deadline.com/2021/05/matthew-belloni-former-hollywood-reporter-editor-digital-media-startup-jon-kelly-1234757958/)

In the case of Puck, perhaps they aren’t catering to sponsors, BUT is their independent streak and ‘story breaking’ reputation perhaps affected by entities that are much more influential than sponsors…like Puck’s investors?

Example: In a profile of a Puck journalist, Vulture.com cited some stories that the journalist had ‘broken’ ahead of the rest of the entertainment journalists. One of them (a big scoop) was that TPG would sell its interest in CAA to the French company Artemis in late summer 2023. What’s interesting though is that, during this time, the cofounder of TPG was privy to information concerning the deal AND he was also on the Puck board of directors. Granted, the Puck journalist included a disclaimer that TPG was an investor in Puck and that no information could be extracted from anyone at TPG…and we’ll give this the benefit of the doubt. BUT, it does raise an interesting ‘Woodward and Bernstein’ versus ‘Richard Nixon’ debate. Could someone perceive the timing of the release of the TPG sale scoop as in any way influenced by something connected to TPG? The old ‘what did Puck know and when did they know it?” We honestly don’t know how the sausage was made on this one…but, again, content and timing are fascinating mechanisms to study.

And revisiting the Hollywood Reporter dilemma that many reporters likely faced if the rumors were true with respect to the quashing of stories…the perception of a potentially similar problem at Puck is worth assessing as a ‘what if?’

Example: Vice-Media. TPG is a significant financial player in Vice. Not Deadline has been looking for not yet found articles on Puck.news (it will keep looking and admit its oversight when found) that do the deep dive uncovering of important storylines that have gone on for years. The rise and fall of a once powerful online news site that branched into television and film and all sorts of ancillary media. They had a highly controversial CEO whose personal and professional missteps compromised the company’s ability to establish the sort of reputation that Puck and Deadline have. Vice also has consistent money problems. Content problems. Investment issues. Significant gutting of employee numbers issues. They have been a case study of anything and everything that can go wrong. Could this be perceived as something different than the reality? The New York Times even broke a great story about Vice’s attempt to go public in order to keep alive the hope that TPG and other investors could get their money back. We want to see someone at Puck.news doing the deepest dive of all and getting inside the belly of the beast. Surely, there is still some meat on that bone.

And what about TPG’s investment in Azoff Music? Irving Azoff is one of the more, if not the most, powerful players in the music business. He is fearless. He is uncompromising and he stirs up controversy wherever he goes because he has goals and achieves them. No middle ground. He’s a ‘must read’ for anyone interested in a dynamic personality who makes anything happen…and yet, there doesn’t seem to be much controversy to read about him in Puck. Maybe, we aren’t looking hard enough? Maybe the journalists don’t deem Azoff newsworthy enough to justify meaningful coverage? Maybe, he’s not as ripe for bashing as Shari Redstone at Paramount? Who knows? We’ll keep searching for articles on the subject and will provide an update possibly before next Tuesday’s article. Either way, this is all just food for thought. Perception can sometimes invade reality.

At yet another end of things where it’s hard to figure out why someone is willing to die on a hill, in June, alone, why have there been daily, countless articles written about Paramount and Skydance where Shari Redstone gets bashed at most of the turns? The story is simple. Shari trapped herself into a corner (that she wouldn’t…or couldn’t afford to come out of) when she retained too much voting power with (only 20% of the stock) to give a crap about everyone else who owned at least 80% of the shares of stock. Skydance wisely preyed on this wrinkle and enticed her with an offer and revised offer that she had to refuse regardless of her wanting to accept because she would have been sued into oblivion in a class action lawsuit and would have likely been handed her shirt. All the other stuff in between is empty calories. Maybe, the readers want the blow by blow, but if so, hasn’t Skydance made missteps worthy of mention? Why did they keep pressing for a deal that they had to suspect could not come together within the framework they chose? Did they have a different game in mind as things started to unravel? We don’t know. We might never know.

And what about AMAZON (an important client of Standard Industries via 40 North Media)? There is a fascinating, dysfunctional dynamic going on over there from the top down. Jennifer Salke is assigned more and more divisions even though her bread and butter is one division—television. The film division suffers greatly. Even the television programming is spotty at best. And the people hired below her in certain important areas are simply not qualified to shape the future. We understand that relationships usually trump experience, but this is not just some small or medium or large distributor. This is a global powerhouse…which begs the question: why isn’t Amazon taking a page out of Apple’s book and putting people with decades of leadership experience in specific arenas into those specific arenas with some semblance of independence? Want to read a hard-hitting piece about this? Kim Masters wrote one for the Hollywood Reporter in April 2023 about Amazon’s short-sighted executive hierarchy of hires. It’s great. As for Puck, it served up something not necessarily hard hitting along with some advice in an article covering Salke in July 2023. That’s sort of a bummer. Why not do a more critical dive? But, this is just food for thought. Perception can muck up the reality.

Anyways, this could go on and on, but if Puck truly wants to significantly reduce the ‘perception problem’, they should make an arrangement with TPG and STANDARD INDUSTRIES and the latest investor J ROTHSCHILD CAPITAL MANAGEMENT (if it, too, owns or is an investor in certain entities that raise a red flag) that allows the journalists to bring on a brand new single third party investor who buys out the current investors and isn’t perceived  (rightly or wrongly) as being concerned about valuations or other corporate interests or anything other than the story behind the story. This way, everyone gets what they want. Granted, finding these sorts of investors is akin to discovering a unicorn…but, hey…it’s worth a shot. What do they have to lose?

Not Deadline’s spidey senses tingled when it was announced that Rian Johnson’s company had made a two picture ‘put’ deal with Warners Bros to finance and distribute two projects that both sides could agree on in the name of what Rian and Ram called  Warner Bros. “renewed committment to the theatrical experience” (which is interesting since Rian and Ram gave KNIVES OUT 2 and KNIVES OUT 3 to a distributor with the exact opposite philosophy). Otherwise, in the article, there was no mention of exclusivity or terms or timeframe or of who will bring what financing to the table or who will own the copyright. There’s no mention of anything beyond an agreement to try to agree on two projects. Because of the vagueness (and because of some other things), we get to speculate about the future of KNIVES OUT 3.

The film that launched Rian as a talent to be reckoned with was a very, very small but respectful 45 screen theatrical release for BRICK given the film’s left-of-center style and a cast of young ‘unknown’ actors. The next film, BROTHERS BLOOM, was intended to have a wider theatrical release beyond 209 screens, but it didn’t test well enough to inspire the studio to go wider. It wasn’t until LOOPER exploded into the wide 3,000 theater screen release that Rian’s dream came true…followed by STAR WARS which released on everything with a white background (including bedsheets). And then came KNIVES OUT, the widest release of Rian’s ‘original material’ career. 3,500 screens. On the eve of this eagerly anticipated milestone, Rian emphasized the importance of theaters when he told CINEMABLEND:  These days, it’s much more about attention. For me, it’s about the fact that if I’m in a theater I know that I can’t pick up my phone and look at it. I’m going to be able to zero in on that experience. I’m in the dark, and I’m with an audience of people who are having the same experience. I know I’m going to get the actual experience of the movie.

…and then, reinforcing his allegiance to the theatrical experience, Rian doubled down to THE INDEPENDENT: I think, ultimately, I do have this kind of doe-eyed optimism that when you sit down in the theatre and the lights go out, all of that garbage disappears. You’re having a pure experience of a movie. Whatever happens in those two hours in the theatre is between you and the screen….(cinemas) are a haven where you can believe for a few hours”. As easy as it is to lose hope – and as understandable (and sometimes necessary) as cynicism can be – there is a magic to cinema that lifts up the veil of darkness and dares to lay the path to a better future.

…which is why audiences and experts were both baffled and stunned when Rian moved not just KNIVES OUT 2, but also KNIVES OUT 3 from Lionsgate’s wide screen theatrical release strategy to Netflix’s anti-theatrical streaming model. Not just a theatrical opportunity was lost. It’s eighteen months later and counting that KNIVES OUT 2 is still not available for rent or purchase or streaming by anyone who doesn’t subscribe (or share passwords) to Netflix…which is unfortunate because the film would have inevitably found its way to Netflix anyways AFTER everyone around the world who didn’t subscribe to Netflix had the chance to see it by now.

Which brings us to KNIVES OUT 3. Rian recently tweeted out a KNIVES OUT 3 teaser with the title and the release year (2025) with the Netflix logo at the end (https://deadline.com/2024/05/rian-johnson-next-knives-out-installment-1235937714/). Soon after, actors were announced as starring in the film. Jeremy Renner, good call. Josh Brolin, better call. Glenn Close, best call. 

This must mean that Rian’s wish for a wide theatrical release by Netflix (booking theaters directly or via an existing distributor…or how about the acquisition of a distributor? That wouldn’t happen, but cool to think about.) has been granted. Why? Because even though KNIVES OUT 2 had a token theatrical release (which Rian lamented privately and publicly), a newly discovered theatrical commitment by Netflix will reinforce everything Rian previously and recently stood/stands for as an artist. (Side note: since Netflix is going with the theatrical release model, good luck to them landing high profile film packages without contractually committing to as wide of a theatrical release as KNIVES OUT 3, which will blow up the Netflix business model and possibly the stock price.)

Ok. All set. Right? Not necessarily. This is where ‘what if?’ comes into play. What if Netflix sticks to its business model and does what it has always said, and does not do anywhere near the 3,000+ screen wide release? Rian has two choices. Do nothing and roll with it (which is his right of course…but, it would just seem counterintuitive to the passion he’s expressed for theatrical)…OR do unto Netflix what he did unto Lionsgate. Take the Knives Out sequel away from Netflix and put it through Warner Bros. (or through some other theatrically committed distributor).

Can Rian do this? Of course! Recall at Lionsgate’s pre-Golden Globes party in early January 2020 when Rian told the Hollywood Reporter he wanted to be in production on KNIVES OUT 2 within a year. Chairman of the Motion Picture Group, Joe Drake, said he couldn’t wait to read the script when it was ready.  Soon after that, the CEO of Lionsgate (Jon Feltheimer) announced to the world that KNIVES OUT 2 was officially greenlit and, subsequently in another call, he stated that the production would start filming soon…

…until the announcement was made in late March 2021 that Netflix had acquired the sequel rights. How could this happen? Jon Feltheimer said (in 2022) that Rian had always retained the sequel rights and decided to shop them elsewhere. Rian added during an interview with ScreenDaily on Dec. 16th 2022 that the deal with Lionsgate was only a single picture license and that his team had been shopping and pitching the sequel around town. Ok, if what both parties say is true, then how farfetched is it to suspect that Rian has a similar ‘out’ in his Netflix contract that allows him to shop Knives Out 3 before the film comes out. And no, it’s not too late even if a teaser trailer has been released with the Netflix logo at the end. That’s child’s play.

Another angle regarding this Warner Bros. announcement has to be pointed out. If Rian isn’t adding KNIVES OUT 3 to the ‘put’ deal or to any other theatrically attracted distributor and is instead reserving these ‘puts’ for new filmmakers, it will just seem odd that Rian is putting a priority on theatrical for others and not himself (ie. Knives Out 3). Second, it will put the agencies who represent the filmmakers of these ‘put’ films on the spot to assess early on if they want their client’s film to forego an open auction (if the film is good enough) for a premature  ‘put’ at Warner Bros. which doesn’t necessarily guarantee a specific kind of release and could mean less money for the agency and for their clients. Yes, it does mean financing, but T-Streets first two films AMERICAN FICTION and FAIR PLAY were auctioned and scored homeruns for all involved). Third, the ‘put’ slots will give the films created by newbies additional opportunities to release culturally significant material that perhaps has a bit more of a cultural impact than Rian’s recent material. AMERICAN FICTION being the perfect example.  Smart. Irreverent. Pitch perfect execution (except for the ending…too many chefs overthought it) with a lot of insightful things to say about a lot of things. An Oscar worthy adaptation (it should have also won Best Picture hands down as well as a Best Actor Oscar for Geoffrey Wright), the resonance for years to come of this little gem will shine for a long time to come. Is this what Rian wants? Is it what he needs? Wouldn’t he rather aspire to be Christopher Nolan aka the gold standard for singularly devoted (to themselves in the sense of removing outside distractions) filmmakers in the spirit of Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Fincher, Tarantino, Villeneuve, Aronofsky. (random side note: T-Street has to be commended for rolling the dice on AMERICAN FICTION. It does speak to a knack for betting on the right talent)

Time will tell which format KNIVES OUT 3 is widely released on/in (and by whom), but regardless…Not Deadline’s wish is for Rian to return to that fertile ‘imaginative world-building inhabited by brand new characters’ mind of his and leave Star Wars and any more Knives Out sequels in the rear view mirror. It’s time.

Not Deadline LOVES a good mystery and this story has Agatha Christie meets Succession meets the boardgame Clue in spades. We can thank the uber-dysfunctional Presley parents and former Presley spouses and children and cousins and aunts and uncles and soon to be more children for this excitement. It’s got it all. An iconic icon. Musicians. Lots of money. Drugs. Alcohol. Celebrity. Artistry. Actors. Actresses. Embittered siblings. Embittered half-siblings…but, before we circle back…

…let’s set the table with specific facts (apologies if they are a rehash, but it’s important) from the Priscilla Presley lawsuit in 2023 and from the Riley Keough lawsuit a few weeks ago (May 2024) because history repeated itself in a purposeful way that no one has focused on. 

Lisa Marie Presley inherited all things Elvis (including Graceland) on her 25th birthday and named Priscilla Presley and former family business manager Barry Siegal as co-trustees. Upon Lisa Marie’s death, it came to light (Barry Siegel had voluntarily stepped down as a co-trustee in 2019 amidst a brutal and ugly lawsuit with Lisa Marie) in a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie’s will, that Priscilla and Barry had been swapped out as co-trustees for Lisa Marie’s children, Riley and and Benjamin Keough. With Benjamin having already passed away, Riley became the sole trustee of Promenade Trust LLC which oversees Graceland as part of its portfolio.

Priscilla filed suit in January 2023 challenging the 2016 amendment on three primary grounds. First, the signature on the amendment was not Lisa Marie’s, but rather a forgery, in part, because the signature mispelled Priscilla’s first name. Second, Lisa Marie’s signature had not been witnessed or notarized. Third, Priscilla had never received or been notified of its existence until after Lisa Marie’s death, which was eight-ish years after the amendment had been drafted.

After months of legal wrangling, it was announced in mid-May 2023 that Priscilla and Riley had reached a financial settlement whereby Priscilla (no longer the trustee) and her son and grandkids would be paid different amounts of money for different reasons at different times.

And then, at some point between May and October 26th 2023, the overall ‘final’ settlement was reached and filed with the court. In addition to the agreed upon financial terms, Riley agreed to use best efforts to allow Patricia to be buried as close to Elvis as possible and to allow Priscilla’s son, Navarone Garcia (the half-brother of Lisa Marie who hated Lisa Marie and who hated him. We don’t know what Riley secretly thought of him. Probably not his biggest fan given he publicly insulted her mother at every turn), and others to participate and/or attend the memorial at Priscilla’s election. Riley also “agreed to use best efforts to ask Elvis Presley Enterprises and successors not to pursue litigation against Priscilla over name and image and likeness issues.” 

The fact that these personal, non-financial terms (with specific shout-outs to people like Navarone) were codified at all is intriguing. On their face, these clauses suggest, Priscilla’s 100% distrust of Riley (and the others involved with the LLC that oversees Graceland et al) as much in death as in life. Based on reports and articles over the years, this distrust could be rooted in Priscilla’s dysfunctional relationship with Lisa Marie and the controlling way in which Priscilla oversaw the estate and Lisa Marie’s life.

Fast forward to earlier this May 2024. Out of nowhere, a notice is published referencing an impending foreclosure sale of Graceland because, allegedly, Promenade Trust (now overseen by Riley Keough) defaulted on repayment of a $3.8 million loan to Naussany Investments & Private Lending, LLC (which was associated with Gregory Naussany and Kurt Naussany).

Riley’s lawyer filed for an injunction on three primary grounds. First, Lisa Marie Presley’s signature on the loan documents were forgeries. Second, the notary signature belonged to a notary who never met Lisa Marie or witnessed anything that was allegedly signed.  Third, certain legal documents had never been filed with the appropriate department. Do these three primary grounds for fraud sound familiar?

Turns out that the LLC and its alleged owners were complete fictions who, upon being sued, let the world know that they were withdrawing the notice and not moving forward with the foreclosure.

Which leads to two important questions that have not yet been satisfactorily answered. Who was credibly behind this foreclosure hoax and what was the motivation for doing it?

Some reports and experts suggested that random fraudster financial opportunism was to blame. Other outlets wrote that they had been contacted by a scamming network claiming responsibility. The New York Times reported that it was contacted by someone on behalf of a Nigerian fraud ring who claimed that the scam was all in the name of ‘just having fun’.

Not Deadline doesn’t buy what any of these alleged fraudster groups are selling. It definitely wasn’t about money because the property in question was too high profile. The perpetrator was a fictitious company overseen by fictitious people who could never survive a lawsuit as soon as the foreclosure notice was posted. As for the ‘just having fun’ angle…if it was 100% about fun, why did the perpetrators throw in the ‘fun’ towel so quickly and not play out the publicity and legal string until every ounce of fun had been had? They could have kept everyone’s heads spinning for days and even weeks or months instead of just saying ‘we give up.” Simple answer: it may have been ‘fun’ for the person or group behind it,, but it wasn’t just about that.

To the contrary, this hoax felt personal. Deeply personal. It felt like a staunch supporter of someone in the Presley family who’d been offended by the dubious 2016 amendment and/or the publicly reported terms of the 2023 settlement. Someone wanted to give Riley/the trust a taste of the same medicine that someone else had taken. Was it perhaps a staunch supporter of Priscilla’s (because trust oversight was taken away as well as the ‘buried next to Elvis’ clause in the 2023 settlement that she thought had to be included along with other things related to money and control)?…of Navarone Garcia’s (not just because he will only get 1/9 of a limited amount of money outlined in the Priscilla/Riley 2023 trust settlement, but because of how embarassing it must be for Navarone that the world gets to learn that he is only going to his mother’s memorial because the daughter of the half-sister he hated has been kind enough to allow him to attend)?…of Barry Siegel’s (who had an all out legal brawl with Lisa-Marie where she accused him of bankrupting her and essentially ruining her life)?…of Michael Lockwood’s (he has every reason to hate Riley given all the PR she gets as the doting aunt of Michael’s two children from Lisa Marie and Michael’s disastrous divorce–.not to mention he was persona non grata after Lisa Marie’s death and sued the trust/Riley to get a piece of the action ‘for the kids’)?

The reader is probably asking what the basis is for this contention. Consider the fact that a forged Lisa Marie Presley signature was at the center of Priscilla’s lawsuit and Riley’s lawsuit. That an unnotorized Lisa Marie Presley signature was at the center of Priscilla’s lawsuit and Riley’s lawsuit. That the question of proper filing/notice of legal documents was at the center of Priscilla’s lawsuit and Riley’s lawsuit? That typos were at the center of Priscilla’s lawsuit with the person who drafted the amendment and Riley’s lawsuit with respect to the self-proclaimed fraudster having typos in their emails. Oh, yes. Whoever orchestrated this hoax followed the same roadmap from the challenged 2016 amendment in the 2023 suit. Nice try, faux scammer from Nigeria. This was the work of a meticulous, insightful copycat fraudster with an axe to grind.

Ok, so now what? Where does this leave us? Let’s do what the Nigerian scammer claimed and ‘just have fun’! Get the whiteboard out and put up pictures of the suspects— everyone related to or formerly married to or a close friend to or a business associate to a Presley who despises Riley/the trust and guess which room in the Graceland mansion it happened in and with what object. Let the game begin!!

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. The Steve Cohen-owned Mets are not good. There’s no sense of urgency from the players on the field. The manager has failed to get the most out of the players who aren’t playing with urgency. The roster as constructed by the GM is not working..and the owner is tweeting way too much and will instead need to do some soul searching after the season is over…which leads to this post. Why are we talking about the Mets when there’s nothing newsworthy about them?

Well, there actually might be…and it’s worth telling a story.

CAA and Range Media Entertainment (financially backed, significantly, by New York Mets owner Steve Cohen) share literary and talent clients, co-represent domestic rights deals for a number of independent feature film projects, and have their respective actors/actresses starring in each other’s filmmakers’ films and television shows.

And recently, to secure additional financing/investments in the pursuit of expansion and growth, Range Media Entertainment retained CAA’s former film finance executive, Rick Hess as well as TPG executive David Bonderman who was a significant cog in the TPG machine that once owned a majority interest in CAA.

It’s surprising to see CAA embracing Range Media given CAA’s long history of frowning on (and sometimes suing) CAA employees/agents who defected to competitors (UTA) or who founded competing upstart entities (Michael Ovitz).  

Ok…that introduces two of three in this arranged marriage, but how about the third?

Steve Cohen, the Wall Street hedge fund guy, made a fortune. He says he did it by the book. The SEC said he didn’t. His company Point72 paid a $1.8 billion fine. Undeterred, Mr. Cohen went on his merry way and poured billions of dollars into any and all companies involved in ‘tech’ (Fintech/AI/Cybersecurity/Defense/Consumer)..and yet, none of this stroked his ego. These were all just ‘things’ that people with too much money do in an effort to make ‘way too much more’ money. As Sheelah Kolhatkar was quoted in a New York Times article as saying about Mr. Cohen–(August 30, 2020) ‘He (Mr. Cohen) is “always someone who cared a great deal about his image, and he was determined to show the world he won…”

Say hello to the New York Mets. A majority interest in the team was up for sale in 2019 and Mr. Cohen saw it as a legacy defining opportunity (after he’d lost out on buying the Los Angeles Dodgers). Author, Sheelah Kohatkar, said in the same New York Times article (looking back on Steve Cohen’s will to win)…”Owning the Mets would be a ‘capstone’ in those efforts (to show the world he won)” Sure enough, looking backwards, in December of 2019, a deal for the Mets and Mr. Cohen was imminent. $2.6 billion for 80% of the team with the Wilpon’s maintaining control for the next 5 years…until the deal fell apart when impatient Steve Cohen came to his senses and pulled back because worried about the Wilpons making decisions that could further devalue the team on and off the field.

Unrelenting, Steve Cohen continued a dialogue with the Wilpons into 2020 as nonexclusive negotiations against other bidders spilled over into the spring.

And then an interesting thing happened…

In late April 2020, it was reported in the press that CAA-repped Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez would make a run at buying the Mets. Around this same time, it was reported that former longtime CAA agent Pete Micelli was leaving a large entertainment conglomerate called Eone to contemplate the next stage of his career.

Between April and July/August 2020 amidst Steve Cohen’s nonexclusive negotiation with the Mets–it was reported in different media outlets that CAA-repped JLo and A-Rod had would put up a lot of their own money, that they wouldn’t put up much of their own money,  that they were pulling out of the Mets negotiations entirely, that they met with billionaire Wayne Rothbaum, that Wayne Rothbaum passed, that their official bid had a different billionaire involved, that they would toss in $100 milion as a World Series bonus, that the Mets owners wouldn’t part with the cable station as part of the deal, etc. Surely, no one, especially the Wilpons, could rely on this pair.

Meanwhile, during this same time period, Pete Micelli (formerly of Eone as mentioned above) and the other agents-turned-managers-to-be-named-later had assembled all but one of the pieces needed for what would become known as Range Media Entertainment. The last piece was the most important:  pinning down the group of really wealthy people who would finance the venture. 

As for Steve Cohen during this time, his bid of at least $2 billion for the Mets remained a constant like the North star and he was willing to spend a lot more if necessary. The Wilpons knew it as did the others, but that didn’t stop Steve Cohen from biting his nails to the nub because JLO or another group might pull a magic rabbit out of their hat.

All of these people and companies converged publicly in late August 2020 when, on August 23rd, it was announced on Deadline.com that Pete Micelli had launched a new management and production company called Range Media Entertainment with significant financial backing from none other than Steve Cohen who had never before or since invested in a startup entertainment management company that had nothing to do with tech or AI or any forward thinking ‘growth’ space…and then on August 28th, 2020, JLO and A-Rod announced on instagram they were officially bowing out of the Mets bidding sweepstakes, thus leaving a clear path for Steve Cohen to exclusively negotiate to buy the Mets.

Let’s have some fun and play the game of hypothetical ‘what if?’ because we’ll never know the actual truth unless someone has the courage to spill the beans before they die.

The Mets auction was fast and furious. JLO and A-ROD were in and then out and then in. It infuriated Steve Cohen to no end because he’s feeling the heat. And then, at some point during this craziness, Steve gets contacted (a call? a meeting? a letter written in invisible ink? a heads up from SIRI?) by someone who knows one of the bidders “So, you want the Mets…that’s funny because JLO wants the Mets.” “Yes. I know.” “You think you know, but you don’t know…” “What don’t I know?” Steve asks. “There’s a path to victory for you.” The man (or woman) says. “I’m listening.” “All we ask is for you do someone a favor in the very near future.” “A favor? What is this, the Godfather?” Steve asks, exasperated. The man (or woman) dismisses the snark and continues. “A new management company in the entertainment business is being formed by a group of former agents from all of the big agencies.”  “…and?” “All you have to do is invest millions (possibly tens of millions? possibly more?) of dollars in this ‘startup’ and agree to some other things…and the odds of you getting the Mets will increase significantly.” “Why would I ever invest in an upstart talent management company? I’m a tech guy.” Long silence. Longer silence. The man (or woman) wants Steve to figure it out on his own. Steve plays through all the scenarios. Who else knows about this ‘offer?’.  It makes Steve’s head spin.

Clarity finally emerges through the foggy part of Steve’s brain. Three scenarios. The worst case scenario is that he dismisses the offer and loses out on the Mets while wondering for the rest of his life if accepting the offer would have made the difference. The middle case scenario is that he accepts the offer and loses tens of millions of dollars in a startup management company and still has a fair shot at owning the Mets. In the best case scenario, he accepts the offer which turns out to be a significant talent management company that becomes something important someday AND HE OWNS THE METS!

Sure enough, the best case scenario wins out…

Post script: **Range Media is valued at $300 million after an additional round of funding.

                    **CAA and Range Media continue to make beautiful music together.

                    **Steve Cohen’s daughter meets and falls in love with one of CAA’s agents. 

Before we go, there are a few looming questions…and Not Deadline does not yet have the answer.

What is the end game for Range Media?  Continue growing into the global player that makes people like its ally, CAA, proud? Continue growing the company into something that cashes in its chips for mid to high nine figures when the right company at the right time makes the right offer for the right price?

One other interesting thing to revisit is the ‘why?’ of it all. If CAA was involved in any way whatsover with Range Media’s birth, what was the motivation? It’s often about money and/or power, but how? In what form? One thing’s for sure– when Range Media came into existence, the entertainment business was being ravaged by Covid and by the elimination of packaging fees that forced agencies to shrink, take on outside investors, or merge with other agencies…so, there’s a lot to dig into.

This whole thing is fascinating because 99% of the world plays checkers. 1% plays chess…and only a handful out of that 1% are the Grand Masters…

…stay tuned…

Would you bet for…or against someone who is the CEO of AMC if Not Deadline told you the following about them?

–this person fanned the flames of his publicly traded company’s meme stock price increases (meme stock increases are when the value of a stock is artificially inflated because of a coordinated effort by individual investors to buy that stock at the same time) so he could unload the majority of his shares (to the justifiable shock of retail investors) before the value of the stock came crashing down to its actual value.

–this person, in spite of his company’s consistently terrible financial performance, was granted tens of millions of dollars in stock in 2023, which he claimed were once but no longer worth millions and instead worth pennies on the dollar, so that he could tweet out to the world how selfless he is, when in reality, the ‘once allegedly valuable’ shares that were worthless all along..will be the perfect tax writeoff when he decides to sell or abandon the shares.

–this person, in spite of his failing company’s business and a hemorrage of hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, invested $28 million of the company’s money in a gold-mining outfit that has dropped in share price since then from just above $12 per share to just above $3 per share (Not Deadline hopes to devote a special article to this highly suspect investment down the road).

–this person has insisted, since the end of the Covid pandemic, that company earnings would get on the right track and the company would thrive instead of dive…only to see it continuing to dive as of the day this blog is being written…and as a result, he has to consistently raise more funds by selling more and more stock in the company to the horror of investors who didn’t realize he would put himself above what was best for the company.

–this person knows the theatrical business will never make a consistent return to its pre-pandemic ways because Covid accelerated the theater-going public’s pivot to streaming after previous pivots to television, videotapes, DVDs, and cable television as content distruptors. 

–this person stacked his Board of Directors with individuals who, for the most part, are not adept at looking under the hood of the business to trust, verify, and challenge every financial and moral move he makes. Instead, the vast majority of the board members specialize in domestic and foreign relationships with creative talent and investment entities and theatrical entities. Exhibit A: this person somehow kept his job after sexting with someone (not his wife) and geting blackmailed for it. He then referred his situation to the FBI so that no one will ever learn the sordid details. No CEO has ever or ever should survive this absurd breach of morality (and, for sure, a morals clause which may or may not be in his contract). Other CEO’s get canned for far less.

Bottom line: this person inspires financial and moral distrust.

And yet, some still say ‘don’t bet against Adam Aron…at least not yet.’

Not Deadline says ‘bet the house against Adam Aron right now and force him out so his replacement can file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and start the inevitable rebuild of financial management and trust between not just the company and its stakeholders…but, with regular everyday investors who will no longer be suckered into buying shares of the Titanic before it leaves port.

 

Someone’s ears were burning (talk about having a finger on the pulse…) when Not Deadline emailed a draft of its blog about the Black List to a 3rd party for editorial input (the draft blog email is attached below)...because a few days later, this above PR announcement touched exhaustively on the reintroduction of the writing contests that the Black List and its merry band of inclusivators (Yes. The word is made up, but it sounds so cool) had previously tossed aside.

The Black List and its conspirators had no choice but to overcorrect because–

CAPE and the Black List haven’t announced any Asian Pacific winners since 2020.

EASTER SEALS/WGA DISABILITY PROGRAM and the Black List haven’t announced any disabled writer winners since 2020.

GLAAD and the Black List haven’t announced any LGBTQ+ winners since 2022.

Muslim Public Affairs and the Black List haven’t announced any Muslim winners since 2022.

NALIP and the Black List did not announce winners for 2024.

Bottom line: the Black List and its partners hijacked inclusiveness in the name of perception..and, when it dawned on them that the public might catch on—they scrambled for cover like vampires at sunrise and put out a press release efforting to convince the public that ‘there are no vampires here’.

What would be really cool is if the paying members of these inclusive groups stood up and collectively said “Wait a minute. Why am I paying hard earned dollars for membership in exchange for exposure as a writer when these contests are nothing more than illusory opportunities? I want my money back!”

Scroll to Top