To-do list with your keys to the studio

Top talent manager and producer Brad Grey arrives March 1 as the new chairman of Viacom’s Paramount Pictures, replacing industry veteran Sherry Lansing. His priority is to restore the studio’s luster, tarnished by a prolonged box-office slump and management upheaval....

Brad Grey

Paramount Pictures

5500 Melrose Ave.

Dear Brad,

I’d congratulate you, it being your first day on the job, but I suspect you got enough air kisses at Brian Grazer’s party the other night to last a lifetime. Until we get to meet in person, I thought I’d take the opportunity to pass along some free advice. (It’s what columnists do -- we kibitz.)

You’ve probably noticed that you’ve inherited a second-division team. In terms of Oscars, you have to go back to 1998 to find a Paramount film (“Titanic”) in the winner’s circle. (“Titanic” was co-financed with Fox.) Since then, while Miramax has earned 138 Oscar nominations, Paramount has barely broken out of single digits. The studio’s revenues aren’t looking so hot either. Paramount had a tiny 7% domestic market share last year. Internationally, you were dead last among major studios. Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” did almost as much business overseas as all your movies put together.

Talk about having nowhere to go but up! The news from Viacom’s radio division was so bad last week that the business press barely noticed that the film division’s profits fell 20%, which normally would be a story in itself. To be fair, the old regime left you with a trio of potential summer hits; a Tom Cruise-starring “War of the Worlds,” an Adam Sandler comedy remake of “The Longest Yard” and a Cameron Crowe film that should be a favorite with critics. Their go-slow DVD policy, which has kept many of the best titles off the market, also gives you the chance for a quick boost in profits if you start pumping them into video stores.

Still, if I were you, I’d figure out what to do about the studio’s foreign operations, which are something of a disaster area, especially since the old regime’s policy of selling off most of the foreign rights to the studio’s films came at the very time that the overseas market was exploding. At some studios, foreign now accounts for 60% or 65% of their theatrical business. At Paramount, the studio focused on domestic theatrical, which is the part of the business that’s not growing at all.

International may be the least glamorous part of the industry, but it’s where the money is. You’re in a tough spot. Paramount and Universal are equal partners in UIP, which distributes your movies overseas, but with Universal providing the lion’s share of product, guess who’s been getting the most favorable treatment, while you still pay half the costs? As I understand it, you’re locked into UIP for another couple of years and it would cost a hefty chunk of change to opt out early. On the other hand, I hear that Universal might be interested in bailing too, so maybe you and Ron Meyer could figure out a gentlemanly way of ending the relationship.

With the overseas market booming, you need an international distribution expert who can run a free-standing company or at least look after your interests -- I hear Universal already has someone in London, quietly building their own organization. The reason studios like Warners, Fox and Disney are cleaning up overseas is that they realize that Paris, London and Rome aren’t the same as Chicago, Boston and Atlanta. And if your ambition is to be like them, you probably need to fly your own flag. There are plenty of good international distribution execs available -- just call Wayne Duband, who used to run Warners’ overseas distribution, or Scott Neeson, who was at Sony and Fox. (Neeson is the guy who quit Sony to run an orphanage in Cambodia, which in Hollywood can mean only one of three things: too many yoga classes, he’s in the CIA or he really couldn’t stand his boss.)

The other area in dire need of rebuilding is your in-house divisions, notably MTV Films, Nickelodeon and Paramount Classics. (Please don’t call them your “brands” unless you want people to think you spent all this time preparing yourself to run an ad agency.) The bad news is that these divisions have been so beaten down and disrespected by the old regime that they’ve lost most of their swagger and self-confidence, which is what you need to pursue or develop good material.

Paramount Classics has such a pitiful track record that when Harvey Weinstein found himself bidding against them for a Johnny Depp movie recently, he told the producers that if he didn’t top Classics’ best-ever box-office performance when he released the movie, he’d personally donate $500,000 to Depp’s favorite charity. MTV Films is probably the most poorly exploited logo in movie history, having been prevented over and over from making or acquiring films that would give it a real identity. The studio has to find a way to generate films that make better use of the MTV network, which gives the studio a huge advantage with free access to MTV promotions. (Why else did Fox Searchlight cut Paramount in on “Napoleon Dynamite,” one of the studio’s only specialty division hits?)

What all these logos need is autonomy. The best way to do that is to bring someone in whose sole job is to nurture and grow their businesses. This will take pressure off Donald DeLine, who’s been a breath of fresh air but should be allowed to focus on what he’s good at -- making Paramount films. If run properly, MTV and a new classics division can be an incredibly valuable resource, establishing relationships with young actors and filmmakers who could do more mass-appeal movies at the studio after they hit it big.

I know the conventional wisdom these days is all about creating franchises that have global appeal, usually by remaking crappy old movies and TV shows. But the batting average on remaking old junk is no better than creating something new. It’s great for the studio to have a relationship with Brad Pitt, but the most profitable movies are the ones without stars. They’re cheaper to make, you don’t have to give away gross points and, when you have young talent, you’re more likely to be in sync with the young moviegoers who keep the business alive and kicking. Just as Disney has expanded its brand by putting the Disney logo on the PG-13 “Pirates of the Caribbean,” you should put the MTV logo on any movie that has credibility with young audiences, whether it was developed by MTV or not.

Movie stars are overrated. Look at the 10 top-grossing films of last year and tell me how many of them had a star that you’d cast in a film tomorrow without breaking a sweat. I count two: Matt Damon and Ben Stiller. Everyone in Hollywood loves to talk about relationships, but don’t get in the habit of doing stars’ pet projects just to get in business with them. Your real relationship should be with your audience. Movie stars help bring people into the theater, but they are notoriously bad judges of what makes a commercial movie.

I’ve had the luxury of watching a lot of executives do their job, and unfailingly the ones who do it best don’t let their egos get in the way. If you’re looking for a model, look no further than Ron Meyer at Universal. People make fun of his sweaters and call him detached, but to me, he’s like a great basketball player who makes it look so easy that you look up in the fourth quarter and go, “How did he score 35 points already?” At Universal, people are encouraged to speak their minds and challenge accepted wisdom. Unlike Michael Eisner and all the other egomaniacs in this business, Ron lets Stacey Snider and her team do their jobs and get the credit, which is probably why they’ve all stayed at the studio, despite everyone’s efforts to steal them away. It’s a management style built for the long haul -- spread the credit around and eventually plenty of it will find its way back to you.

I could go on -- we haven’t even gotten to the prickly “what to do with Scott Rudin” issue -- but I don’t want to start sounding like Peter Bart. Whatever you do, don’t chase last weekend’s hot movie. Studios are like Hummers; they have a notoriously bad turning ratio. By the time you’ve changed direction, the audience has migrated somewhere else. Be contrarian: When everyone else is looking for a revenge thriller, run in the opposite direction. The audience doesn’t want another revenge thriller -- they want another good movie. And trust me, good movies are like good men -- they’re hard to find. So, good luck. You’ll need it. But I bet you knew that already.

The Big Picture appears Tuesdays in Calendar. Comments and suggestions can be e-mailed to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.