Movies and Shakers

After a two-year hiatus from the movie business, former Universal Pictures Chairman Tom Pollock is back.

Known as a canny deal maker, Pollock, 54, is partnering with one of Hollywood’s most commercially successful director-producers, Ivan Reitman, in a new production company that will be one-third owned by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.

The new venture--which anticipates three to five mainstream movies a year--is being funded through a combination of PolyGram cash and bank financing, which is in the process of being finalized with a U.S. lender.

“Between PolyGram and bank financing, we will have sufficient money to develop and produce 15 to 20 movies over the next five years,” said Pollock, declining to discuss the exact financial terms of the deal.

Based on the average production cost of more than $40 million, the venture could easily require more than $600 million in financing.

PolyGram Filmed President Michael Kuhn said his Beverly Hills-based company--a division of the global music and entertainment group PolyGram--has committed to putting up half the financing. The five-year term of the deal will kick in once the bank negotiations are concluded.

Pollock said that he and Reitman, who each own one-third of the still-unnamed company and together two-thirds of the film library of titles they intend to build up, are not ponying up any of their own money for the venture. “But, we’re not taking any salaries either. Our success will be based on the performance of each movie and the company as a whole,” said Pollock, who since being edged out at Universal after Seagram Co. bought the company, has been teaching in the film department of UC Santa Barbara, and serving as chairman of the American Film Institute.

The new company, to be headquartered in Santa Barbara, where both Pollock and Reitman reside, fits into PolyGram’s strategy of having separate film labels that feed a variety of products into its worldwide distribution network. PolyGram, whose wholly owned movie outfits include Interscope Communications, Propaganda Films and the Britain-based Working Title Films, has distribution operations in 15 countries, including the Britain and its new U.S. organization.

PolyGram will collect a reduced distribution fee from the Pollock-Reitman company to release its product in all media worldwide. Kuhn said that while PolyGram currently releases about a dozen movies a year between its specialty distributor, Gramercy Pictures, and more mainstream label, PolyGram Films, he’d like to increase that by at least four.

“My experience has been that in order to get 16 movies, you have to have capacity of 24,” said Kuhn. “By adding this unit, it gets us closer to that capacity.”

The arrangement with Pollock and Reitman would also help PolyGram defray skyrocketing production costs. “It’s an efficient way of leveraging up our investment and making less cash go further,” explained Kuhn. “Movies are getting more expensive, so everyone’s doing some variation of this. So, instead of spending $10, you spend $5 and get $10 worth of production.”

It’s become an increasingly common practice among Hollywood studios to structure deals with independent movie companies that can bring some portion of outside financing to the table.

Acknowledging the high risk in the film business, Kuhn said PolyGram is betting on Reitman’s track record (his more than two dozen films include such hits as “Dave,” “Twins,” “Kindergarten Cop” and “Ghostbusters”) and the fact that Pollock “is very savvy and very plugged in to the Hollywood scene.” As head of Universal, Pollock made the deal with Kuhn to form Gramercy Pictures as a joint venture in 1992.

Kuhn added, “Both of them are looking forward and want to do new and different stuff. Their ambition to set up an independent production entity fits into our up-to-date film financing structure--it’s a happy marriage.”

Operating within budget limits set by PolyGram, Pollock and Reitman will have the authority to green-light movies of their choice and retain all creative control. (As one of the industry’s top directors, Reitman always has final cut on his movies.)

“It was very important to me to have the authority to make one’s own film,” said Reitman, 51. “We wanted to be an autonomous label with a partner who needs the kind of movies we want to make.”

Reitman, who has committed to direct at least two movies for the new company over the next five years, said he will continue to make comedies “but not only comedies.” The movie he just completed for Disney, “6 Days, 7 Nights,” starring Harrison Ford and Anne Heche (due out this summer), is a romantic adventure.

Reitman, who also directed the less successful comedies “Father’s Day” and “Junior,” has produced such films as “Space Jam,” “Private Parts,” starring Howard Stern, “National Lampoon’s Animal House” and “Beethoven” and its sequel.

In addition to financing the development and production of films to be directed and/or produced by Reitman, the company will actively pursue projects by other filmmakers, writers and actors, said Pollock.

Pollock, surprisingly enough, said he does not expect to see his name on the big screen alongside his new partner. “My job is to run the company, not produce movies,” said Pollock, a former entertainment lawyer whose business expertise and high-powered deals eventually led to his being recruited to run Universal Pictures in 1986.

Until Pollock and Reitman can build a new facility in Santa Barbara, they will temporarily base their operation out of Reitman’s Northern Lights production company--a sleek, $5-million suite of offices housed on Universal’s back lot that overlooks a golf course in Universal City. They will also maintain offices at PolyGram’s Beverly Hills headquarters.

The new partners will undoubtedly find themselves frequently commuting to Los Angeles to do business, but that’s nothing new to Pollock, who did so his last three years at Universal. Both believe there’s an upside to living and working outside the hub of Hollywood.

“There’s a positive advantage to being outside of the day-to-day pressures,” said Pollock, noting how a number of other Hollywood figures, including Michael Douglas and directors Bob Zemeckis and Andy Davis, run their respective businesses from Santa Barbara.

“I think we’ll be able to have a much more creative atmosphere,” he added.

Besides, added Reitman, who relocated there last September, “Seventy-five percent of the real business is done on the telephone.”

Pollock said the first priority is to get up and running in motion pictures, but he hopes to see the company eventually grow into other businesses, including television, music and merchandising.

Reitman was born in Czechoslovakia and fled with his family in 1951 to Canada, where he began his career in theater and television. He and Pollock have been friends and business associates for more than 25 years, having met through actor Harold Ramis.

Reitman hired Pollock, who was Ramis’ attorney at the time, to represent him on the movie “Animal House,” which he produced and John Landis directed. Pollock also negotiated deals for other early Reitman films, including “Meatballs,” “Stripes” and “Ghostbusters.” When Pollock took over as chairman of Universal’s Motion Picture Group in 1986, he signed Reitman to an overall deal at the studio, which resulted in such hits as “Twins,” “Kindergarten Cop,” “Beethoven” and “Beethoven’s 2nd.”

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Productive Partnership

Tom Pollock and Ivan Reitman have been friends and business associates for more than 25 years.

Tom Pollock

* 1971: Formed the law firm of Pollock, Bloom and Dekom.

* 1986: Appointed chairman of MCA/Universal’s Motion Picture Group. Had a hand in overseeing the “Back to the Future” trilogy, “Field of Dreams,” “Jurassic Park,” and “Schindler’s List,” among others.

* 1996: Announced resignation from MCA in March. Elected chairman of the American Film Institute.

* 1998: Forms a production company with Reitman.

Ivan Reitman

* 1951: Fled Czechoslovakia with family and relocated to Canada.

* 1971: Directed first feature film “Foxy Lady.”

* Also: Directed “Meatballs,” two “Ghostbusters” films, “Stripes,” and “Twins.””Kindergarten Cop,” “Dave,” “Junior,”and “Father’s Day,” Produced “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” “Beethoven” and the sequel. Directed and produced the upcoming “6 Days, 7 Nights.” Television credits include “The Late Shift,” “The Real Ghostbusters,” “Beethoven,”

* 1998: Forms a production company with Pollock.

Sources: Baseline, Polygram