On The Road To Awards Season? Kerouac Book Finally Makes It …
Michael Bay’s Name Pushed Paramount To Settle Injured …
Several More New Series In Recasting Mode; Returning Ones …
‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’ Moving To March 2013 To …
Directors Fortnight Says It Must “Police …
‘Chronicle’ Helmer Josh Trank Takes On …
Big Media Chiefs Tell Cable Operators To Speed Up ‘TV …
Will ‘Pan Am’ Take Flight With Amazon?
EMMYS: Showtime Launches Free Weekend Promotion Targeting …
TOLDJA! ICM Management Buyout Complete
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Dancing With The Stars’, …
An Olympian Effort: NBCUni Plans 5,535 Hours Of Coverage …
Netflix Exec Denies It’s Responsible For Nickelodeon …
DESPERATE: HuffPo & Oprah Team Up Now
Hot Trailer: ‘The Great Gatsby’
How Did Women Pilot Writers Fare For 2012?
Disney Quits Snow White Film ‘Order Of The …
Cannes Planning Surprise Screening Of Non-Fest Films; …
Investors Unfriend Facebook As SEC Investigates IPO …
Cash Windfalls For WME Agents, Assistants
A&E IndieFilms Sets ‘Happy Valley,’ …
CAA has signed Aline Brosh McKenna, the prolific screenwriter of The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses, and the recently wrapped Paramount comedy Morning Glory. She had been repped by Hohman Maybank Lieb but I heard she took agency meetings recently before signing with CAA. Brosh has numerous scripts percolating — The Undomestic Goddess, which Andy Fickman will direct, and the Fox comedy We Bought A Zoo.
Loading ... Loading ...
WOW! So much vitriol. What is behind all this anger?
Ya’ll are crazy. People have the write to switch jobs. Don’t we ALL quit jobs because the next one is offering us more money? Yes. The movie business is no different. HML treated her good as they SHOULD. She brought them a lot of money over the last few years. Now she wants more! Get that money, girl! Don’t listen to some of the Deadliners who only wish they could write million dollar scripts like you.
Looks like she wants to be swimming with some bigger fish!!
Bob, Bayard and Devra are a rare breed in this business. Liked by absolutely everyone. It doesn’t matter if it’s a boutique agency or an agency with 300 agents, it all comes down to the people who fight for you and these three are the best at what they do. Too bad for Aline, her loss.
Firing an agent is something every screenwriter dreams of doing, to get even for all the years of heartache and rejection. I congratulate Aline, I’m just sorry she went to CAA instead of going it alone. With blockbuster films to her credit, I think she has reached a point in her career where she does not need an agent.
Going it alone? She doesn’t want to leave the business. I’m sorry you haven’t had luck with your career. I happen to love my agent. Maybe someday you’ll find the right one for you.
Heard from someone who knows that she was making at least $4 million a year.
Apparently that’s not enough and she thinks CAA can get her more.
It will be interesting to see. Personally, I’m waiting for karma to work its magic…
Those of you denigrating the work of agents are absolutely right, when it comes to the agenting at the big four, but when it comes to HML, you are dead wrong. They are old-school agents who actually work for a living. They don’t just answer phones and cash checks…. That’s CAA.
Who did she sign with at CAA?
Since when was prada and dresses even well written let alone prolific? Dresses was terrible.
When a writer is thinking of leaving a rep they genuinely like and have built their stella career but they feel they need to get to the next level, this is what should be done, in my not-so-humble opinion. Take your agent or manager out to lunch (yeah, you treat them) and tell them what your two year plan is — I want to be a showrunner, director, form a real production company, whatever — and then ask if they can help make that possible and if so, what is their plan? They come back with said plan and you give them a timetable — six months lets say to get something (not everything) going and if they haven’t come close to delivering, then you can leave IN STYLE and have no enemies. I sorta doubt this is what happened in this scenario, but maybe –
Aileen has also been telling people that she wanted to be represented by a MAN. wow!
It would help if she had any talent. Then there would be something to represent.
She may want to direct. If so, that is the CAA pitch that moves her.
Things are not as rosy at HML as some of these posts would suggest.
If McKenna were happy, she would have stayed.
If this has happened before to HML, maybe HML needs to ask itself why.
Why have multiple writers, who HAVE shown their loyalty by staying with HML for so long, all reached the same conclusion and ultimately left?
Maybe it’s as simple as she wanted to be at an agency with a tv division. That makes her a bitch?
Does HML have any clients who are successful tv writers? Any at all?
Why yes, they do.
They represent Katherine Fugate, who created the #1-rated cable show “Army Wives” and wrote “Valentine’s Day”, which was #1 at the box office only a few weeks ago.
Among others.
In the future, whereof you know nothing, perhaps you should say nothing.
Fugate will be the next to go. Tick tock.
Hey Reality Check, bitter, table for one. As someone in this business who pays close attention to writers, and yes, I do business with HML, and have always found them a pleasure to deal with, the only clients I can think of before Aline who left were a barely mid level, largely untalented male writing team whose careers have done nothing but falter since. So, why don’t you focus on your own career(s) and stop predicting doom and gloom for others.
I don’t know any of the players personally, but I really don’t understand why we need to villify this woman for switching agents. If she felt she needed something else career-wise, then she was right to pursue that. Maybe CAA will take her career to the next level and maybe they won’t, but everyone in this business takes calculated risks every day. Does loyalty mean she can NEVER leave her agent beause through talent and/or luck she’s doing quite well. Do agents sign clients on a lifetime basis as well? Or do they cut or ignore clients fairly quickly if they don’t start seeing money or at least momentum in their clients’ careers?
To Indrid Cold: Welcome to the business yourself… because if you have never met Bob, Bayard or Devra then you aren’t really in the business. They are three of the most beloved agents in town and when a larger agency would have dumped Aline because she couldn’t nail a script or get a movie made, they stood by her, supported her, and helped resurrect her career. To openly dismiss any notion of loyalty is the problem with this business. Does Aline need to do what’s best for her career? Absolutely! Will CAA be the best thing for her? Remains to be seen. I know that most promises of packaging from large agencies is just a signing tool and never actually materializes into anything real for the those clients poached from elsewhere.
Dear Firsttimeposter,
I couldn’t agree with you more. You nailed it.
been in town for a long time . . . been repped at small agencies and the largest agencies in town . . .
see both sides of it . . .
certainly understand why she thinks she should be at CAA. no one can dispute there are big advantages to more direct relationships with A list talent and directors . . .
but also true, that none of the bigger agencies really represent writers.
why?
there’s no money in it.
in addition to that, there ARE indeed a lot of conflicts of working with CAA esp. IF you write on spec which of course very few busy writers, do.
basic example: if you have a dinosaur movie and Spielberg has a dinosaur movie then you have no movie.
as far as loyalty . . . complicated . . .
but ultimately, it’s like having a “job” – you have to do with what’s best for you.
any employer will fire you without blinking if it was in their best interest so any employee should leave if it’s in their best interest.
same rationale here.
so . . .
it comes down to – is this in HER best interest?
her decision.
but you know, she really has NOTHING TO LOSE by doing this.
as others have pointed out, if it doesn’t happen with CAA the way she envisioned, she can run back to Devra.
it’s arguable a riskless move for her . . . with some potential upside.
my two cents.
My experience with a small agency (not HML) was that they would steer you away from ambitions they could not accommodate.
It began subtly but over time started to feel like a business strategy. The impression it left was that I was forwarding their agenda as an agency more than they were forwarding my agenda as a writer. I felt like an employee rather than an employer.
The attraction of moving to a big agency was the perception that size would bring freedom to do anything I wanted. This has proven true and outweighs the risk one feels of getting lost.
Clearly McKenna has achieved financial success. But agents forget that money does not equal happiness for a writer. In some cases, it comes at the very expense of it.
If I were a partner at a boutique agency like HML, I would sit down with all my clients and say, what are your dreams and how can I help you achieve them?
By the time I left, my dreams were completely absent from the conversation.
exactly.
Dreams? What are those?
Yours,
An Agent
To Aline and Devra — you both should take heart in the passion that your relationship evokes! I think you are both classy ladies and wish you both the best of luck.
Hohman Maybank has a couple of other hot writers they’ll lose if they don’t start making things happen for them.
She’s looking to a bigger agency to compensate for her mediocre writing abilities. So she’s smart in that respect. In summary: smart, disloyal, mediocre writer.
“but also true, that none of the bigger agencies really represent writers.
why?
there’s no money in it.”
What the frak are you talking about!?
That makes no sense.
a) ALL the big agencies represent writers. b) there’s money in it.
HML benefitted from their relationship with her, they got money and a “star” writer client which attracts more clients. She wants to take a risk and move on. Big effing deal. Since when is this disloyal? Marriages don’t even last. You’re not signing in blood.
Maybe agents to be nicer to writers and they wouldn’t leave.
!
what I meant is:
1) they represent 500 + features writers of which 50 of them maybe making a lot of money for them . . . it’s the 950 OTHER people who are not making money for them . . .
2) And in relationship to talent and directors, they do NOT make a lot of money, obviously.
3) And I’m speaking specifically to features.
Guys leave their agents all the time are rarely is hatred like this unleashed on them. Seriously, do we always have to pick on the girls?
Clearly SOMEONE from HML has lost some income with this move, foolishly thought they owned this writer and has decided to use this arena to sound off… 3 big mistakes. THAT PERSON needs to let it go and focus on the talent they are still repping before something stale hits the air and turns off other talent to HML as well.
If McKenna made $4 million last year that means HML pocketed $400,000 in commissions. That’s pretty decent pay for answering the phone. What’s startling about this situation is not McKenna’s shrewd decision but the sense of entitlement agents feel and the rage and simple greed underlying these accusations of disloyalty. $400,000. My god. What a racket.
That’s nothing.
There are actually agents out there who think they’re entitled to COMMISSIONS ON ROYALTIES.
Think about that.
They feel they should own part of the writer’s work in perpetuity.
They just can’t comprehend that making phone calls is not part of the creative process.
Mckenna leaving HML opens up a spot for another young hopeful that might write the next BIG thing. I have produced 6 movies with both emerging and established talent. I could tell you stories of disloyalty, disappointments, and disrespect but I’m not. People make choices in life that they live with. I always wanted to make movies and now I get to do it. Do I like the business side if the industry? Not really. That’s why you have agents and attorneys.
BTW: My attorney writes the most creative contracts, she could write circles around McKenna.
I am told HML requires all its clients sign an annual contract that legally binds them to the agency. As soon as the contract expires apparently they make you sign another one. So much for loyalty and trust.
Does anyone know if this is true? I can’t imagine signing a contract like that.