Swimming with sharks
Michael Ovitz and partners Ron Meyer and Bill Haber founded Creative Artists Agency in 1975. The agency's A-list talent includes top actors and the best directors list in Hollywood, including stars such as Steven Spielberg, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and (as of June 1999) the World Champion Wrestling.
Although it is an industry heavyweight, CAA has been somewhat on the defensive since 1995, when Michael Ovitz left the agency to start Artists Management Group three years later, which is putatively not an "agency" but a "management group." Ovitz cleaned out more than his desk when he left: he began luring CAA-represented talent to join his management group. While it is not odd for actors and directors to have an agency and a management group, CAA president Richard Lovett felt that Ovitz was planning a hostile takeover of his former agency. Lovett believed that AMG was a competitive agency, thinly disguised as a separate and harmless management group. In January 1999, CAA announced that it would no longer represent any star who was also represented by AMG, and a number of clients defected with the threat, including actor Robin Williams and director Martin Scorcese.
Expansion
Recently, CAA has sought to expand. Beginning in October 1999, the company acquired 40 percent of Shepardson Stern & Kaminsky, a marketing communications agency in New York. CAA also expanded its business into Internet venues. It inked deals with Drkoop.com, a site that provides health information; and with DotComGuy, Inc., an entertainment site. Furthermore, in February 2000, the agency signed an agreement with Bloomsbury Publishing that would allow CAA to screen unpublished books to decide their potential to be made into films. The expansion of the agency resulted in the hiring of seven new agents in May 2000.
