For New Execs, a Culture Clash

In the three weeks since he became chief executive of Paramount Pictures, Brad Grey has told friends and colleagues that he is taking his time to assess the studio’s strengths and weaknesses.

On Wednesday, when Fox Broadcasting Co. confirmed that its entertainment president, Gail Berman, was leaving to join Paramount, folks at the movie studio found out what “taking your time” means to Grey: moving quickly.

With former television producer Grey at the helm and Berman about to step aboard as his top lieutenant, Viacom Inc.’s Paramount could be headed for a culture clash between a rat-a-tat TV mentality and the attitude that has long prevailed on the studio lot, where longer lead times afford more flexibility.

Television is a rough-and-tumble place with relentless pressures, a punishing schedule and report cards -- those overnight ratings from Nielsen Media Research -- that arrive every day beginning at 5:15 a.m. The rivalries among the four major networks are often intense. By some estimates, being the No. 1 network for the season is worth as much as $500 million in extra advertising revenue a year. And the need for round-the-clock product never ends.

Movie studios, by contrast, move more methodically -- and slowly. What’s in theaters today was sometimes conceived of years before. Market share, although important, doesn’t drive viewers to the box office. The studio culture may be cutthroat, but the pace is more forgiving.

“The daily pressure is much tougher in TV because you have to respond every morning to success or failure,” said veteran movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer, whose small-screen hits “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Cold Case” and “Without a Trace” have made him one of television’s most successful producers.

The feeling that you’re only as good as your “overnights” tends to make TV executives more controlling; they tend to rule with what Bruckheimer calls an “iron hand.” If Grey and Berman try to micromanage the creative process at Paramount, however, it may not go over so well.

“I can’t see Gail Berman or Brad Grey telling Steven Spielberg how to cast his movies,” said Bruckheimer, who is in production on two “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie sequels.

Grey, a longtime talent manager and TV producer with such credits as “The Sopranos” and “Just Shoot Me,” has little movie experience, so he and Berman will be learning the ropes together.

Brian Grazer, the producer behind such movies as the Oscar-winning “A Beautiful Mind,” as well as the critically acclaimed thriller “24” and the offbeat comedy “Arrested Development” on News Corp.-owned Fox, knows both worlds. He says TV people, amped up on the need for immediate turnaround, typically play a harder game of hardball.

“In TV, big agents have no problem saying to a network executive, ‘If you don’t pick up our show, we’ll move it to CBS,’ ” Grazer said, noting that producers and agents don’t just threaten and cajole -- they vote with their feet, shopping their projects to rival networks.

“The TV business is more brutally direct because there’s a time-sensitive urgency to it,” he said. By contrast, “in movies, a lot of times the conversation ends with ‘Let’s think about it.’ ”

On Wednesday, several entertainment industry veterans lauded Grey for his choice of No. 2, predicting that Berman would prove to be a quick study in learning whatever movie production knowledge she lacked.

Sandy Grushow, a television producer who was Berman’s boss at Fox Broadcasting until January 2004, agreed: “Virtually all of these jobs come down to one’s ability to court talent and to exercise good editorial judgment,” he said. “Gail has demonstrated the ability to do both.”

But as they transition from one medium to the next, there are several key lessons that Grey and Berman will have to learn, industry insiders said.

One may be the need for more finesse. Already, many people at Paramount are chafing at what they view as the heartless treatment of Donald DeLine, the studio’s top creative executive. DeLine was in London when he learned that Berman was being brought in over his head. He didn’t hear that from Grey but from associates who called to report the rumors.

Another skill Grey and Berman must master: being satisfied with incremental progress.

In TV, the development process goes at warp speed compared with the slow motion of features. If a TV writer’s pitch in the fall is successful, he or she usually has six to eight weeks to deliver a script. The network typically decides within days whether it will be shot. By May, as Bruckheimer put it, producers find out that “it’s either on the air or not.”

It hardly works that way in the movie industry, in which projects often languish for years before getting made -- if they get made at all. Paramount’s 1984 hit “Beverly Hills Cop” took a decade. So did Warner Bros.’ blockbuster “Batman,” which lingered for 10 years in what’s known in Hollywood parlance as “development hell.”

“You have to be patient in the movie business,” said former Warner Bros. Chairman Bob Daly, who before joining that studio in 1980 worked as a top executive at CBS for many years.

Berman and Grey also will have to think differently about production scheduling.

TV executives must scramble to come up with 1,144 hours of prime-time entertainment each year. Movie executives, meanwhile, can afford to think strategically. At most studios, they turn out about 15 films a year.

“In the movie business, nothing has to get made,” said Darren Star, who began his career as a film screenwriter before going on to create “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Sex and the City.” “In television,” he said, “things have to get made -- and quickly.”

Broadcast executives have to turn on a dime. They have smaller budgets, shorter turnaround times and rigid schedules. In some cases, production for an episode of a TV program begins before a script is even finished.

“Production happens so fast, and there’s a very addictive quality to it,” Star said.

That’s part of what Laura Ziskin, another seasoned movie producer, loved about her few experiences in TV: the instant gratification.

“The fun thing for me was the pace,” said Ziskin, who before making the “Spider-Man” blockbusters worked on such TV series as “Tarzan” for the WB network. What wasn’t fun was the meddling.

“I felt like the studio and network were really, really involved, pretty much dictating what you do,” Ziskin said. “In the movie world, it’s not possible to be that hands-on.”

Times staff writer Maria Elena Fernandez contributed to this report.