A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : SOFTWARE DEPT. : M Squad: Microsoft Mogul Mulls Movies
Question: When you’re the richest man in America--worth more than $6 billion--what do you do with all that money? Answer: The same thing a lot of well-heeled investors have done--you think about getting into the movie industry. According to insiders in both the computer and entertainment industries, Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp., the world’s dominating supplier of computer software, and Michael Ovitz, the head of Creative Artists Agency, have had informal discussions about Gate’s possible entry into the movie industry.
The 36-year-old Gates, who co-founded Microsoft in the late ‘70s and is now considered the most influential and important player in the computer industry, made news recently when it was announced that he reached the top of Forbes magazine’s richest American billionaires list, knocking off majority Orion shareholder John Kluge, the former Numero Uno.
Gates, whose personal worth is now estimated at a staggering $6.4 billion, is currently the subject of the best-selling biography “Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire.” Says a Microsoft source, who asked for anonymity, “Gates is looking to do something with some of his money and feels the film industry might be just the ticket. This is something he’s been talking about doing for quite a while.”
According to Marty Taucher, Microsoft’s director of public relations, though, nothing’s definite at this point. “It’s really speculative right now,” he says from the company’s headquarters in the Seattle suburb of Redmond. Taucher says that a highly placed executive at Microsoft was a college mate of one of CAA’s more powerful agents and a Gates-Ovitz meeting was arranged. “They’re keeping an open dialogue,” says Taucher.
Other computer manufacturers, notably Apple Computer Inc., have recently gotten involved with various Hollywood companies to exploit the possible marriage of computer hardware and software technology and the film industry. But sources say Gates has had a longstanding interest in producing films.
One long shot involves Gates making an offer to buy bankrupt Orion Pictures. Ironically, Kluge, whom Gates displaced on Forbes’ billionaires list, recently put in his own offer to take Orion out of bankruptcy and allow the company to continue operating.
The source at Microsoft said that another possibility is that Gates might finance a movie studio in his hometown of Seattle, where he’s currently building an estimated $10-million estate--80% underground--described as “a high-tech Xanadu.” A Seattle studio “would be ideal for him,” says the source, who points out that numerous films have recently been shot on location in Seattle. “He could get involved with the movies, but he could stay in Seattle and not have to spend time in Hollywood.”
