THE DEAL THAT WASN'T

By RICHARD CORLISS

What does $250 million buy these days? Lots of things, but not Michael Ovitz. That wad was not enough for Seagram's CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. to lure Ovitz from Creative Artists Agency, the talent shop he built into Hollywood's prime power brokerage, to become chairman of MCA, the show-biz conglomerate (movies, music, TV shows, theme parks) that Seagram's purchased last week. Thus ended the hottest nonevent since Comet Kohoutek. Except that this one had bigger stars ready to collide. And the meteor showers may be felt for years.

"It wasn't about money," everybody said, after Ovitz told his team at last Monday's regular meeting that he and two other CAA officers were staying put. No, of course not. Money has mainly a symbolic value in the entertainment business. It tells the top players how much they are wanted or not wanted. You want Sylvester Stallone for a picture, so you pay him $20 million. You want to get rid of Robert Morgado, the recently deposed head of Warner Music, so you contemplate a buyout package that's been estimated at upwards of $30 million.

Since the bust-up of the MCA deal is a Hollywood story, it must also be about relationships. It was about Ovitz's friendship with Bronfman, which was tested by Ovitz's demands for more money and power. It was about the family atmosphere, nurturing and disciplined, in which the lords of CAA raise their younger employees. It was also about the agency's awesome client roster: the Costners and Cruises, Redfords and Streisands, Keanus and Winonas, Spielbergs and Zemeckises. These are people who don't like to feel deserted by their 10-percenters.

According to CAA sources, the reported "preliminary agreement" between the agency and MCA never happened; there was only the back-and-forth of negotiations. But that doesn't really matter. In his flirtation with MCA, Ovitz was like the husband who has a notorious fling with a tootsie, then returns to his wife and children with a blithe, "Honey, I'm home!" The tootsie is MCA. The wife is Ovitz's list of clients, each of whom must now be reassured that, yes, Michael still loves her best. The children are CAA's Young Turks, who during the scare of rumors dared to imagine a scenario of the agency without Ovitz. Elvis is dead. Oops -- the King is back.

Maybe no one is the perfect person for a job that depends so much on dumb luck in guessing the public's whims. An idiot could succeed in such a position, a genius could fail, simply by picking or passing on a Star Wars or a Forrest Gump. It's also possible that Ovitz was unsuited for the position. As a talent agent, he is a seller in a seller's market; the studios want his clients and will pay hugely for them. As MCA czar, he would have been a buyer in that market. The fellow who helped jack up the price of the product would now be asked to run a lean, mean company. It's like putting the mice in charge of the pantry.

Plenty of Hollywood's powerati are pleased that Ovitz did not realize his big dream. In 1989 an Ovitz friend divulged, "Michael would like to end up as the Lew Wasserman of his day" -- a reference to MCA's empire builder, who also began his career as an agent. Ovitz has a vast empire as well, including deals with Baby Bells, advisory roles with banks that own movie studios and a contract to produce commercials for Coca-Cola. He's poised to be the Wasserman of the 21st century. But for now he won't be the Wasserman of MCA, which probably sits well with the old mogul. Last Monday he was said to have told friends, "I'm 82 years old, and this is the happiest day of my life."

Now Bronfman says he will put off looking for a new studio chief while he learns more about the company. And Ovitz, according to a CAA representative, is "working his little fanny off." Some industry insiders think Ovitz's real goal is to be the next chairman of Time Warner. And if that, why not the boss of Viacom? Or Supreme Commander of the Galaxy? And would anyone be surprised if the discussions between Ovitz and Bronfman were to start again? After all, they still have a relationship.

No confirmation will come from Ovitz, a man who wields power in a whisper. He believes in the Oz principle: the mysterious god is most fearsome. He doesn't often speak to the press; when he does it's usually off the record, and he doesn't give away much. Even before the MCA rumors, he was a frequent subject of what-does-he-really-want stories in newspapers and magazines. And today, after months of entrail reading, nobody but the wizard of Ovitz knows for sure.

--With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles