Teaching Soviets the Ways of Tinseltown : Hollywood Lawyer Will Lecture on Art of Movie Deal Making

The working title might be “To Russia With Net Profit.”

The production? Teaching Soviet film makers and lawyers the art of the Hollywood deal--including the occasional double-cross.

Above the line, below the line, break-even point, pickups, backend deals, indie deals, union contracts--the whole arcane business, with its jargon, is about to be dissected for the Soviets by a top entertainment lawyer, Eric Weissmann.

He will be on location in Moscow the week of April 10 to present five full days of instruction--a development that attests to Soviet leader Gorbachev’s power of positive perestroika.

Weissmann, whose Beverly Hills firm represents Warner Bros., NBC and CBS, specializes in representation of film directors. Among his clients are such well-known directors as Alan J. Pakula, Hal Needham, Paul Mazursky, Mark Rydell and Gene Wilder.

So, how did the lawyer get invited for the Soviet project?

It seems that he had started on the groundwork for more American movie making in the Soviet Union, when the Soviet government asked him to teach its people the ways of the capitalists in Tinseltown. He agreed.

Now the 58-year-old Weissmann says he is a bit apprehensive--even though he has lectured annually at Harvard and Boalt law schools and film symposiums, and has taught courses in Los Angeles on film and the law.

One of his major concerns is the daunting task of covering the Byzantine ways of the movie industry in just one week’s time.

Another is the task of portraying Hollywood to “people who live on the moon” as far as any real concept of the place is concerned.

“How,” Weissmann demands, “do I explain the millions of dollars that a Dustin Hoffman or a Sylvester Stallone makes, which is more than it costs them (the Soviets) to make a whole movie?”

He even frets that his jokes will be lost in translation.

But with the prospect of a widening opportunity for American film makers to shoot in the Soviet Union with government help (which can extend even to the loan of its armed forces) he is taking his task to heart.

“What I hope to achieve,” Weissmann said in an interview in his office, “is an interchange.” It will not just be one-way lecturing but an opportunity on both sides to compare procedures in the United States with those in the Soviet Union, he explained.

“They need to know how to do business in America, and we need to know how they do business there.”

One major difference, Weissmann asserts, is that movie makers in the Soviet Union “seem scrupulously honest” about contracts, while “we are not.” Elaborating, the lawyer said:

“We break contracts, sue and get sued. There they don’t. They really abide by them--which is why it is very hard to get a contract (with them).”

As things stand, the Soviets make only flat-price deals, because they don’t have the concept of various types of percentage deals on gross receipts or on profits.

To do business with Hollywood, Weissmann said, the Soviets need to learn to recognize red flags--no pun intended.

He added that the primary danger signs in the maze of Hollywood contractual relationships are the many confusing ways in which Hollywood studios define profits and the unique style of making business decisions.

“They don’t have a clue,” he said simply, adding the afterthought, “any more than we have about them.”

Although the two things are not directly related, Weissmann said he came by the Soviet invitation as a result of recently starting to represent a Soviet film conglomerate, Soyuskinoservice, in the United States.

“They are going to be very active in establishing an identity here (in Hollywood),” Weissmann said.

Nowadays, Soviet film makers are independent and self-sufficient, and “you can deal with them individually” without going through a central government agency, according to the lawyer.

In addition, the government is cooperating with Western movie producers in using unique historical sites (including locations for a film on the life of Josef Stalin) and with manpower, even its army. Even forking over some of their profits to the Soviets, he noted, American producers can make pictures at attractively cheap costs.

He foresees more and more cooperative deals with Soviets supplying the locations, the personnel and the hotels, while “we supply the principal actors, the director and the script.” With the Soviets getting perhaps 25% of the film ownership and income, he said, such deals should be mutually advantageous.