Ryan Kavanaugh: Hollywood's Newest Studio Mogul

Los Angeles Times:

It's amazing how many studios have bitten the dust lately. MGM is flat on its back, Miramax is pushing up daisies, New Line has been absorbed into Warners while DreamWorks is now part of the Disney brand factory. Warner Independent and Paramount Vantage and Picturehouse are all kaput. But we've finally got a new studio mogul in town, Relativity's Ryan Kavanaugh, who is quietly in the midst of transforming Relativity into a real studio, having now acquired Overture Films' distribution and marketing operations from Starz.

Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[nomoredead]

11:05 PM on 07/25/2010

Haven't been to a movie in 18 years...too much garbage.

[jobrien1950]

01:40 PM on 07/25/2010

I worked for someone who fought so hard to get a movie distributed. It was always about the bottom line. It was already made, just needed distribution. He fought, and fought. Finally, maybe because he was so insistent, it was picked up, and then . . . . it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. And then, of course, credit was not given where credit was due.

[talos72]

03:47 AM on 07/25/2010

Why does someone like Kavanaugh even care about making movies? Look, you want to make a product that is profitable, and all else is secondary. Just sell cheap chinese made widgets and hamburgers: lower overhead, probably easier to produce and very profitable. That way, Kavanaugh does not ned to deal with pesky "creative decisions". Why do business people insist in getting involved in companies that deal with products where creativity is essential, and then whine about artists getting in the way of their business?

[kinogod]

03:59 AM on 07/26/2010

Yep

[MadJayhawk]

06:53 PM on 07/24/2010

What a weird idea. A company has to be profitable in the long haul in order to exist. There should be a law against this.

A lot of these companies put out garbage that no one wants to watch. The studios seem to want to make only films that feature unrelenting gore, phony computer-driven visuals, and plenty of skin instead of telling good stories that most of the public do not want to see. They like the news media and the networks in general have lost touch with their audiences. Do they ever step back and ask themselves what they are doing wrong or are they too arrogant to even consider that what they are doing is not selling and that they need to change?

And add that to the fact that most of Hollywood has stuck its collective political finger up in the air to 50% of the American public so many times that 50% wouldn't think of going to a movie with certain stars in it. That is dumb in my book. If your business depends on the entire population liking you enough to spend hard earned money to buy your product you shouldn't go around telling 50% of them directly or even indirectly what big idiots they are even if you have a constitutionally guaranteed right to do so. Their customers have a constitutionally guaranteed right not to buy their product as well. Remember the Dixie Chicks? I don't either.

[ReelBusy]

12:35 PM on 07/24/2010

Ryan does not have the soul for moguldom.

Real Hollywood moguls don't need a Univac computer to know what movies to make.

The greatness of all the real Hollywood studios lies in the movies they made not just for profit but because they needed to be made.

If the great Hollywood moguls acted like Ryan they would just be unknown accountants like he will be considered someday.

Ryan's got cash to make movies right now and when that runs out so will his "moguldom".

[frizzlefry]

12:33 AM on 07/24/2010

"Everything has to run on the principle of profit. We'll never let creative decisions rule our business decisions. If it doesn't fit the model, it doesn't get done."

A new face of evil emerges.

[riverhouse]

09:04 AM on 07/24/2010

That is the way Hollywood has always been run. There are some indies who manage to get a wee bit of funding, but the bottom line is all in the film business.

[ReelBusy]

12:24 PM on 07/25/2010

not true.

Every year there is an Oscar panel of the Producers nominated for Best Picture.
They ask them every year "how long were you trying to make this film?"
Each year the average development time.for these films is about 8 years.
8 years or more of selling, packaging, writing, pleading, begging, borrowing and more.
Just to get a story that has ignited their passion and vision to the screen.

MASTER & COMMANDER took 15 years for Tom Rothman.
THE GODFATHER wasn't supposed to be the seminal hit that it became.
Neither were JAWS or STAR WARS.
CASABLANCA was one of these too.

I said this above and it bears repeating:
The greatness of all the real Hollywood studios lies in the movies they made not just for profit but because they needed to be made.

[m1jones]

10:35 PM on 07/23/2010

I thought moguls were those bumps skiers go over in the Olympics every four years. This guy does look a bit like a bumpkin...