Comeback Kid?

By KIM MASTERS

It's Hollywood's own version of the Starr investigation: people say they're sick of talking about Michael Ovitz, and yet they can't stop watching his every move. Now that the former superagent and erstwhile Disney executive is launching a new management concern, the town is once again mesmerized. Ovitz is working on teaming up with red-hot young managers Rick Yorn and his sister-in-law Julie Silverman Yorn, whose clients include Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz. Late last week he added Eli Selden, who manages Samuel L. Jackson and Teri Hatcher; and JoAnne Colonna, who handles Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Ovitz's new partners are boasting that they're "reinventing the architecture of the business" by shifting power from agents like those at Ovitz's old firm, CAA, who negotiate deals for actors and take a percentage, to once lowly managers, who provide career guidance and hand holding. Usually they charge 15%, but Ovitz is said to be devising a new approach to remuneration. Unlike agents, managers may produce projects with their clients. They may not, however, negotiate or solicit work for them--a line that some agents are worried Ovitz will cross.

Ovitz must reckon with a town crawling with folks who exulted in his fall from superdom. DreamWorks partner David Geffen (no friend of Ovitz's) tried to dissuade the Yorns from joining the new enterprise. Veteran manager Bernie Brillstein, whose dominant management and production firm represents Brad Pitt and Adam Sandler, predicts Ovitz will fail. "The Yorns can't be that smart if they went with him," he says contemptuously.

Brillstein's partner, Brad Grey, is more gracious. "Mike revolutionized the agency business," he says. "I have great confidence that if he focuses on the management business, he'll be a complete success." When Grey talks about focus, he raises a good point. Ovitz's investment in the Livent theatrical company went so sour that the company fell into bankruptcy last week. And he is struggling with a bid to bring a football team to Los Angeles. But Ovitz took the town by storm before. Maybe with this new venture he can do it again.

--By Kim Masters