Viacom in Talks to Fill Top Studio Job

High-powered talent manager Brad Grey is expected to be named head of Paramount Pictures as early as this week, a move that represents a clean break from its previous management team and is likely to bring sweeping changes for the storied and recently troubled studio, knowledgeable industry sources said Saturday.

Sources said Grey was in the final stages of negotiations with Paramount parent Viacom Inc. to succeed studio chief Sherry Lansing, who announced two months ago that she would retire after 12 years on the job. Although talks were continuing Saturday over financial and other issues and could still break down, one top Viacom source said that the odds of a deal were very high.

Grey would take over at one of Paramount’s most crucial turning points. The studio has endured a bleak period marked by management turmoil and deteriorating morale inside its Melrose Avenue gates. Paramount has suffered a prolonged box-office slump with such expensive misfires as “Alfie” and “The Stepford Wives.” Its tightfisted financial approach and cautious strategy has alienated stars, producers and agents, although Viacom has sought to reverse that by loosening its purse strings over the last year.

Grey, who turned 47 on Wednesday, could not be reached for comment. He has been vacationing in Hawaii, but was expected to meet with Viacom executives by Monday. A Viacom spokesman declined to comment.

Grey would be the personal choice of Viacom Co-President Tom Freston, who since being given oversight of Paramount last summer has made fixing the studio a top priority. Paramount’s box-office slide has already shown signs of ending with the success of “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.”

Unlike Lansing, an iconic figure in film with more than 30 years as a studio executive and producer, Grey has limited hands-on movie experience. He also has a relatively poor box-office track record, having produced such flops as “City by the Sea,” “What Planet Are You From?” and “The Cable Guy.”

But as chairman of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, where he helps guide the careers of such stars as Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt, Grey does enjoy strong ties with talent and agents, whose frayed relationships with Paramount Freston is eager to mend.

Freston also wants Grey to change Paramount’s risk-averse culture: It has been reluctant to bet on big, potentially lucrative projects.

A source close to Freston said that he also was drawn to Grey because of his strong business background and reputation as a savvy dealmaker. Grey’s affable, calm demeanor also was said to be a plus because it could help soothe tensions that have mounted between the studio and Hollywood’s creative community.

Though Freston said publicly he wanted to appoint someone with deep movie experience, Viacom sources said he grew frustrated by his limited choices in filling the job. Many top potential outside candidates, including Universal Pictures Chairwoman Stacey Snider and Fox Searchlight chief Peter Rice, are under contracts at other studios.

Those sources said that although Freston had been impressed with the leading inside candidate, Paramount production president Donald De Line, he ultimately chose an outsider perhaps to send a clear signal to Hollywood that it was dealing with a new Paramount. De Line has told Freston he would leave if he were passed over for the job.

A native New Yorker, Grey started in the business running errands for a concert promotion company owned by Miramax Films co-founder Harvey Weinstein. For years, he has been a high-profile, respected figure in Hollywood. In addition to talent management, Grey is known for his accomplishments in television, where he served as executive producer on the HBO’s Emmy-winning series “The Sopranos.” His company owns stakes in that and shows such as “Just Shoot Me.”

Though Grey has turned down several top studio jobs in the past, including at Disney, Sony and Universal, he appears ready to make the jump. Having amassed a fortune at his management company, Grey’s friends said, money is not his prime motivation.

If he joined Paramount, Grey would be giving up a powerful and autonomous position as a manager-producer to take a studio job that would earn him less money, require him to answer to corporate bosses and subject him to the kind of Darwinian management culture that pervades today’s media giants.

But status as a power player in the movie business has eluded the highly ambitious Grey. Industry veterans who know Grey said that heading a studio would present him with a seductive opportunity to join Hollywood’s elite club of studio chiefs. “Everyone treats you differently,” said a friend of Grey’s.

Grey is friends with both Freston and Viacom’s other co-president, Leslie Moonves. Nonetheless, industry sources warned, friendships can unravel when executives are forced to work side by side, such as in Walt Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner’s ill-fated hiring of Michael Ovitz as president in 1995.

Freston, who until recently ran Viacom’s highly profitable MTV Networks cable group, has had a history of making unconventional choices.

He is known for grooming promising young executives and taking chances by giving them big jobs. Christina Norman, for instance, was plucked from MTV’s promotion department to run troubled music channel VH1, which she quickly turned around by changing a rule-bound culture that had stifled creativity.

If the Paramount deal is consummated, Grey would join a long list of onetime talent representatives who have become top studio or corporate executives in Hollywood, with mixed success. The late Lew Wasserman, who started as an agent, built entertainment conglomerate MCA Inc. Ron Meyer, a former agent, heads Universal Studios Inc. But Meyer’s former partner, top agent Ovitz, failed at Disney.

There are still a number of issues to be resolved before Viacom can seal the deal with Grey. The stickiest is how Grey gets out of existing business relationships, including his sole ownership of Brillstein-Grey. Hired by veteran manager Bernie Brillstein in the mid-1980s, Grey was made a full partner in 1991. Four years later, the 64-year-old Brillstein stepped back from daily management, selling his stake to Grey.

Holding onto Brillstein-Grey would be a conflict of interest because as head of a studio, Grey could channel business to his firm and its clients.

Grey also would have two other major issues to resolve. One would be to extricate himself from a film production company, Plan B, that he formed three years ago with Pitt and Aniston, at Warner Bros.

The company just renewed its deal until 2008. Its first picture, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, is due out July 16. At least two other films are gearing up for production this year.

As head of Paramount, Grey would not be permitted to make movies for a rival such as Warner Bros.

Grey probably would have to divorce himself from “The Sopranos” for a similar reason. The award-winning show has one more season on HBO.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Brad Grey

Chairman and chief executive, Brillstein-Grey Entertainment

Personal: Born Dec. 29, 1957, in the Bronx; raised in Spring Valley, N.Y. Wife, Jill, and three children.

Education: Communications degree, 1979, State University of New York, Buffalo

Management career: After working as an assistant for Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein, he became a talent manager, signing comedian Bob Saget as his first client. He built the successful Brillstein-Grey talent management company with longtime manager Bernie Brillstein. Much of the firm’s early success came representing “Saturday Night Live” stars. Its clients today include the show’s producer, Lorne Michaels, along with such stars as Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, Nicolas Cage, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Martin Short.

Production career: Like a lot of Hollywood managers, Grey is frequently attached as a producer to his clients’ projects. He served as executive producer on such hits as “The Wedding Singer” and “Scary Movie” but also on such duds as “City by the Sea,” “The Cable Guy” and “What Planet Are You From?” He has a film production company with his firm’s longtime clients Pitt and Aniston.

In television, Grey has been attached as producer to a number of successful and critically acclaimed shows, including “The Sopranos,” “Politically Incorrect,” “NewsRadio,” “Just Shoot Me” and “The Larry Sanders Show.”