“Ryan Kavanaugh, would-be king of tinseltown”

Good read in the Financial Times on Ryan Kavanaugh, who has turned Relativity Media into a major Hollywood player in the movie scene:

At just 36, the red-headed Kavanaugh has already produced more than 30 movies. He has raised billions of dollars from Wall Street firms, money which has been invested in more than 100 films released by Hollywood studios — Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures, among others. Hancock, Mamma Mia!, The Social Network, Salt and the upcoming Cowboys & Aliens, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, have all been partially financed by blockbuster deals that were arranged by Kavanaugh.

Such a meteoric rise has not gone unnoticed: the film trade paper Variety recently anointed Kavanaugh its “Showman of the Year” in a special issue which included 20 pages of gushing tribute ads from friends and business partners. Variety also declared that Kavanaugh “eschews sleep, clocking a mere 90 minutes to two hours a night”, and revealed, among other things, that when not producing movies he spends his time “working with sick kids in hospitals”, practising “transcendental meditation” and “closing in on a cure for cancer” through his involvement with a bio-tech venture.

Kavanaugh’s is an unlikely path to movie moguldom. After attending UCLA, he started a small venture capital and stock trading firm, which attracted several film industry clients. The company would eventually collapse but while pondering what to do next Kavanaugh realised there was money to be made funnelling Wall Street funds into Hollywood.

 — —

Kavanaugh, who declined to be interviewed for this article, works and parties hard, friends say. A number-cruncher adept at structuring complex financial deals, perhaps his biggest talent is his charm, with few in Hollywood rivalling his skill as a salesman. He has earned notoriety in the business for his lavish spending: at one dinner at the Ago restaurant — Robert De Niro is one of the owners — Kavanaugh left a $20,000 tip, according to someone who claimed they saw the credit card receipt. Relativity would not comment on the terms of Kavanaugh’s remuneration package but the company’s growth has given him access to perks enjoyed by other studio heads such as use of a corporate jet for some of his personal outings.

Screenwriters like people like Ryan Kavanaugh. Why? Because they create buyers, production companies who need content and hire writers to shape that content. And Relativity Media has been active on the spec script front. By my count, the company has accounted for these sales in the last three years:

2008: 4
2009: 2
2010: 5

Those number not only rival the major studios, in some cases they dwarf them.

For more of the article, go here.

HT to @webacion for the link.

Yesterday Jeffrey Katzenberg and DreamWorks Animation. Today Ryan Kavanaugh and Relativity Media.

Do you see a trend here? Are you thinking what I’m thinking for a new GITS resource for screenwriters?

More tomorrow.