And Popcorn Costs How Much? : Seagram Spends $276,544 on Screening Room for Studio Exec

As any film buff knows, the cost of seeing a movie has soared in recent years.

Showing movies to Hollywood executives isn’t cheap either. Seagram Co. has spent $276,544 to date to build a movie screening room at the Los Angeles home of Frank Biondi Jr., chief executive of the company’s Universal Studios Inc. entertainment unit.

The information is included in Seagram’s proxy statement filed Friday by the Montreal-based spirits and entertainment giant with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

SEC documents show that Seagram will own and operate the screening room, provide a projectionist and cover all insurance, maintenance and property tax expenses.

If Biondi leaves the company, or if he sells his home, Seagram can remove the screening room lock, stock and projector, although Biondi has an option to buy it if he wants.

A Seagram spokeswoman declined comment on the screening room. As perks go, personal screening rooms are relatively common in Hollywood for high-level executives.

Still, it’s rare when anybody reveals how much they cost, as Seagram has to because it is a public company.

Separately, the Seagram documents show that the beverage concern paid Biondi $7.3 million in the fiscal year ended in June, including a $5.85-million bonus. Biondi, who was hired as chief executive in April 1996, also received $380,454 in reimbursements to relocate to the West Coast from his New York home.

Biondi’s take doesn’t compare with some lucrative pay packages enjoyed around Hollywood by such executives as Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner.

But Biondi did take home more than his boss, Seagram Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. The proxy documents show Bronfman made $4.2 million in the fiscal year, including a $3.15-million bonus.

The documents also show that Seagram paid Lew Wasserman, who oversaw Universal until Seagram bought the company in 1995, $1 million as part of a lifetime consulting agreement with the Hollywood patriarch. The proxy statement also shows Seagram has paid $87,500 in consulting fees to a company owned by Bronfman’s father-in-law, Frank Alcock.