Summer battle royal for agents
Hollywood IS all about bragging rights: who has the biggest box-office returns, the largest market share, the most Oscar nominations. Talent agents love the glory as much as anyone but generally prefer to keep the spotlight on their clients.
So we’ve decided to do the back-slapping for them.
As much as they say they dislike reading about themselves, agents very much have been in the news recently. While it’s unclear if the Screen Actors Guild will go on strike and prompt a complete work stoppage, the agencies are still hurting from the recent 100-day Writers Guild of America labor dispute, which forced many to reduce staff, drop lesser clients and forgo bonuses.
Because most movie studios planned for the possibility of a SAG walkout this summer, they front-loaded their film production schedules and committed very few dollars to making movies in the year’s second half, leaving agents scrambling to find their clients work.
At the same time, skirmishes among the town’s five top agencies have been escalating, with a prominent agent or an important client switching sides nearly every week.
More worrisome to all talent agencies are the numerous A-list actors who no longer have agents at all, a list that includes Emile Hirsch (who left United Talent Agency as soon as “Speed Racer” bombed) and “Iron Man’s” Gwyneth Paltrow (who is no longer being represented by Creative Artists Agency).
As the year’s most important -- and competitive -- moviegoing season, the summer provides a perfect period to measure the agents’ true clout. We’ve selected 25 of what we consider to be the summer’s highest-profile films and analyzed which agencies currently represent the key creative talent in each movie.
Admittedly, it’s a tremendously subjective exercise: Who says the upcoming “X-Files” movie is more worthy than “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2”? Well, we do. And isn’t Sigourney Weaver’s voice a critical ingredient of “Wall-E”? Sadly, not by our reckoning. “Hancock’s” Jason Bateman makes the cut, but not “Wanted’s” Morgan Freeman? We’ve seen both movies, and that’s our ruling. And shed a tear for producers too, none of whom qualified because our focus rests on directors, writers and actors.
Given their instinctive fierceness, the agencies have tried their best to apply pressure and influence the outcome any way they can. One dutifully (if not morbidly) pointed out that CAA shouldn’t get credit for representing Heath Ledger, as “The Dark Knight” star is no longer alive. Another went to bat for a client’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-her cameo in “Sex and the City.” Several argued that writer-director clients should get two votes for fulfilling two jobs. We saw it differently.
Because so many agents and clients have changed addresses in the last few months, the agency that helped put key pieces in one summer movie may receive hardly any credit for it under our rules if the agency no longer represents those people. UTA, for example, once handled some of the linchpins in Aug. 15’s “Tropic Thunder.” But since writer-director Ben Stiller and costar Jack Black recently left UTA for Endeavor, the latter agency grabs our vote. And because Black is also the lead voice in “Kung Fu Panda,” Endeavor collects not one but two points in our accounting.
Even multiple tallies such as that, however, can only narrow -- but not close -- the gap between the dominant CAA and everyone else. As any studio executive or film producer will tell you, CAA’s authority is unrivaled. What’s surprising about this poll is not that Endeavor landed in second (as it has been steadily rounding up and launching topclients), but how close everyone else is. International Creative Management, which has lost a number of agents and clients over the last few months, still has a surprisingly strong showing thanks to its literary department.
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Accounting for bragging rights
A tally of talent agency clients in the summer’s 25 highest-profile films, listing the key creative people in each film. The five major agencies listed are the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the United Talent Agency (UTA), the William Morris Agency (WMA), International Creative Management (ICM) and Endeavor.
John Horn
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“The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”
William Moseley, actor...UTA
Andrew Adamson, writer-director...UTA
Christopher Markus, writer...UTA
Stephen McFeely, writer...UTA
Anna Popplewell, actor...CAA
Skandar Keynes, actor...Endeavor
Georgie Henley, actor...Hamilton Hodell
Ben Barnes, actor...ICM
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“The Dark Knight”
Maggie Gyllenhaal, actor...CAA
Chris Nolan, writer-director...CAA
David S. Goyer, writer...CAA
Christian Bale, actor...Endeavor
Jonathan Nolan, writer...UTA
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“Get Smart”
Anne Hathaway, actor...CAA
Pete Segal, director...CAA
Steve Carell, actor...Endeavor
Matt Ember, writer...Endeavor
Tom Astle, writer...ICM
Dwayne Johnson, actor...UTA
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“Hancock”
Vy Vincent Ngo, writer...ICM
Vince Gilligan, writer...ICM
Will Smith, actor...CAA
Pete Berg, director...Endeavor
Jason Bateman, actor...UTA
Charlize Theron, actor...No agent
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“Hellboy II: The Golden Army”
Selma Blair, actor...CAA
Guillermo del Toro,
writer-director...Endeavor
Ron Perlman, actor...No agent
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“The Happening”
Zooey Deschanel, actor...CAA
M. Night Shyamalan, writer-director... CAA
Mark Wahlberg, actor...Endeavor
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“The Incredible Hulk”
Tim Roth, actor...CAA
Zak Penn, writer...CAA
Edward Norton, actor...Endeavor
Louis Leterrier, director...Endeavor
Liv Tyler, actor...UTA
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“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
Cate Blanchett, actor...CAA
Steven Spielberg, director...CAA
David Koepp, writer...CAA
Jeff Nathanson, writer...CAA
Shia LaBeouf, actor...Endeavor
Karen Allen, actor...Paradigm
Harrison Ford, actor...UTA
George Lucas, writer...No agent
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“Iron Man”
Jeff Bridges, actor...CAA
Robert Downey Jr., actor...CAA
Jon Favreau, director...CAA
Mark Fergus, writer...CAA
Hawk Ostby, writer...CAA
Art Marcum, writer...ICM
Matt Holloway, writer...ICM
Gwyneth Paltrow...No agent
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“Journey to the Center of the Earth.”
Jennifer Flackett, writer...Endeavor
Mark Levin, writer...Endeavor
Brendan Fraser, actor...WMA
Eric Brevig, director...WMA
Michael Weiss, writer...Original Artists
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“Kung Fu Panda”
Jack Black, actor...Endeavor
Mark Osborne, director...Endeavor
Jonathan Aibel, writer...Endeavor
Glenn Berger, writer...Endeavor
Ethan Reiff, writer...WMA
Cyrus Voris, writer...WMA
John Stevenson, director...CAA
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“The Love Guru”
Mike Myers, writer-actor...CAA
Marco Schnabel, director...CAA
Graham Gordy, writer...CAA
Jessica Alba, actor...Endeavor
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“Mamma Mia!”
Pierce Brosnan, actor...CAA
Colin Firth, actor...CAA
Meryl Streep, actor...CAA
Phyllida Lloyd, director...CAA
Stellan Skarsgard, actor...ICM
Amanda Seyfried, actor...Innovative Artists
Catherine Johnson, writer...The Agency
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“Meet Dave”
Rob Greenberg, writer...ICM
Bill Corbett, writer...ICM
Brian Robbins, director...UTA
Elizabeth Banks, actor...UTA
Eddie Murphy, actor...WMA
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“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”
Brendan Fraser, actor...WMA
Rob Cohen, director...WMA
Alfred Gough, writer...WMA
Miles Millar, writer...WMA
Maria Bello, actor...CAA
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“Pineapple Express”
Seth Rogen, writer-actor...UTA
Evan Goldberg, writer-actor...UTA
Judd Apatow, writer...UTA
Danny McBride, actor...CAA
David Gordon Green, director...CAA
James Franco, actor...Endeavor
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“Sex and the City”
Sarah Jessica Parker, actor...CAA
Michael Patrick King, writer-director...CAA
Kristin Davis, actor...WMA
Cynthia Nixon, actor...WMA
Kim Cattrall, actor...ICM
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“Speed Racer”
Larry Wachowski, writer-director...WMA
Andy Wachowski, writer-director...WMA
Christina Ricci, actor...ICM
Emile Hirsch, actor...No agent
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“Step Brothers”
Will Ferrell, writer-actor...CAA
John C. Reilly, writer-actor...CAA
Adam McKay, writer-director...Endeavor
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“Tropic Thunder”
Jay Baruchel, actor...CAA
Robert Downey Jr., actor...CAA
Brandon T. Jackson, actor...CAA
Jack Black, actor...Endeavor
Ben Stiller, writer-director-actor...Endeavor
Etan Cohen, writer...ICM
Justin Theroux, writer...UTA
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“Wall-E”
Andrew Stanton, director...No agent
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“Wanted”
James McAvoy, actor...WMA
Timur Bekmambetov, director...WMA
Michael Brandt, writer...WMA
Derek Haas, writer...WMA
Chris Morgan, writer...ICM
Angelina Jolie...No agent
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“What Happens in Vegas”
Cameron Diaz, actor...CAA
Ashton Kutcher, actor...CAA
Tom Vaughan, director...CAA
Dana Fox, writer...WMA
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“The X Files: I Want to Believe”
David Duchovny, actor...ICM
Chris Carter, writer-director...ICM
Gillian Anderson, actor...CAA
Frank Spotnitz, writer...Endeavor
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“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan”
Emmanuelle Chriqui, actor...Endeavor
Adam Sandler, writer-actor...Endeavor
Dennis Dugan, director...UTA
Judd Apatow, writer...UTA
Robert Smigel, writer...CAA
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Agency breakdown
Here’s a look at 25 of the summer’s highest-profile films broken down by which agencies represent key creative talent.
CAA (44 clients): 34%
Endeavor (24 clients): 19%
WMA (18 clients): 14%
UTA (17 clients): 13%
ICM (15 clients): 12%
Others (12 clients): 9%
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Note: Others include the agencies of Hamilton Hodell, Innovative Artists, Paradigm, Original Artists and artists without agents.
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Source: Individual agencies
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