A ‘Hit’ With the Industry Insiders

If you don’t believe that Hollywood wants to know the dirt about Hollywood, check out the goings-on the other day at Brentano’s Books in Century City:

A theater-chain executive went to the store to buy Hollywood’s latest industry tell-all, “Hit & Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood,” by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters.

“I see Leslie Nielsen in there doing a book signing on his golf book,” the executive said. “Then I see this long line of people standing in line and they aren’t buying poor Leslie’s book. They’ve got ‘Hit & Run’ in their hands.

“So I walk over to the line because I see about six industry guys that I’ve known for years standing there waiting to buy it. They’ve all got a copy and they’re all reading the same page, 358 . . . where it names the Sony executive whose wife was supposedly a bit too cozy with the president in the White House. That page was listed in The Times’ Book Review but didn’t say who she was. Well, I had to check it out myself. . . . I wanna read the dish. I already know what Guber and Peters did to Sony. Who doesn’t? But this is telling me something I don’t know! Who cares about the other stuff?”

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It is a typical reaction to the latest tome to set the town abuzz. Even those who say they won’t buy “Hit & Run,” having read the excerpt in the June issue of Vanity Fair, concede they are interested in the book’s gossip about all Sony executives’ shenanigans, from lavish extravagances and insane spending to the Heidi Fleiss sex scandal.

And those who are reading it (the book is currently No. 1 on The Times’ Southern California bestseller list) are hoping to cull a few juicy details about the key players who spent Sony’s money furiously and then were booted from the helm of Sony’s two studios, Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, leaving the companies saddled with billions in debt and a slate of lousy productions.

Some in the industry have criticized Masters’ and Griffin’s reporting as being a bit thin, unrevealing, a rehash of what has been printed before and a dated story that is being published far too late to arouse a lot of interest. But they do concede that most in the industry will, at some point, at least scan the book.

Most studio executives, as well as literary agents and rival publishers to the Simon & Schuster book, say they bet the book will only sell in Los Angeles and New York where readers know who Peters and Guber are and care about their antics. But Simon & Schuster believes it could have a bestseller on its hands.

“What this book shows is the excesses of the movie industry today, just as ‘Indecent Exposure’ did a decade ago,” says Carolyn Reidy, spokeswoman for Simon & Schuster. “There are massive personalities in it. This book is a combination of celebrity-hood and Hollywood. It is an inside story on how Hollywood works and that is something the public always wants to know.”

The publishing house says 62,500 copies of “Hit & Run” were shipped to bookstores nationwide two weeks ago, but would not disclose sales figures. But the Century City Brentano’s hasn’t been able to keep the book in stock, according to a clerk, and at Santa Monica’s Barnes and Noble, the store manager said: “It is flying off the shelves because we have so many patrons who are in the industry. This book is a natural seller for us.”

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Masters and Griffin say they worked on the book for the last four years, and wished, like their publisher, that the book could have been finished earlier. But like most writers who try to write an extended work about the inside story of Hollywood, the story kept changing.

“You know, I think it’s a good time for the book to come out now because Peter [Guber] has his first movie [“The Fan”] about to be released” since his ouster at Sony, Griffin said. The film is being produced by Guber’s Mandalay Entertainment, ironically a rich production deal Guber negotiated with Sony as part of his exit package.

“The natural endpoint for the book was when Peter Guber got fired. But the story kept building. Four years ago we couldn’t imagine any of this happening. I guess we knew these guys failed at the time. We just didn’t realize how spectacular it was,” said Griffin, until recently the West Coast editor of Premiere.

Added Masters, now at Time magazine: “People who are Hollywood insiders know that Jon and Peter were a worst-case scenario. I guess what was so rewarding in doing this book was that no phone call went unrewarded.”

But some industry insiders say that at least some Sony executives were treated unfairly in the book. For example, some close to Mike Medavoy accuse the writers of being inaccurate and ignoring facts that didn’t coincide with their “agenda” when it came to the former TriStar chief.

“When it came to my situation there were a number of inaccuracies. I would never buy this book. And I will not comment on it further,” Medavoy said. (Peters and Guber did not return phone calls seeking comment.)

Current TriStar chief Marc Platt also declined to comment, while other Sony employees said privately they are sick of the story and don’t wish to relive the Guber-Peters years.

“Some people around here are pleased to see the abuse of power and horrific waste of money come out in the open,” said a top marketing executive. “Now other people can see and understand what was happening to the rest of us.”

Griffin and Masters accuse Daily Variety Editor Peter Bart of not publishing a story detailing the studio’s production excesses, alluding to Bart’s friendship with Guber. Bart fired back at the writers in a recent column attacking their reporting.

“My only concern about this book is that I thought it fell into the trap of some [industry] books like this, that it represents one person’s view of the world, that person being Jon Peters,” Bart said in an interview. “The second thing is that a lot of anecdotes in there were things I had heard as gossip, not true accounts. There’s a distinction between luncheon chit-chat and what is grist for serious journalistic inquiry.”

“I think Peter Bart’s primary allegation is that the primary source in our book is Jon Peters and that is simply not true,” Masters said.

“People in this town know Peter Bart is a very good friend to Peter Guber. They produced a movie together. Peter Guber wouldn’t talk to us and Peter Bart is acting as Peter Guber’s errand boy with his column,” Griffin said.

One top Paramount producer who knows Guber and Peters well summed up any need to read the book this way: “Peter Guber comes off as a complete ass. Jon Peters comes off as a fool who can’t read. And that’s pretty scary considering Peters was playing with someone else’s money as a studio head. The Vanity Fair article was enough for me. My time is too precious.”

But the reaction of Castle Rock Entertainment President Martin Shafer is indicative of others polled around Hollywood: “I read all industry books because I’m curious. But mostly because I love the gossip. Everyone does despite what they protest. I’m only on Page 50. I plan to keep going.”