Word: sheinberg
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...Matsushita the Tokyo end of management seems in order; the trouble is between Tokyo and Hollywood. MCA's Lew Wasserman and Sidney Sheinberg -- the longest-running partnership in Hollywood -- have been heading the studio, but have openly complained that their pushes to go after CBS and to open a theme park in Tokyo were ignored. The Japanese firm is especially eager to keep the team intact since director Steven Spielberg, who made close to $1 billion for MCA with Jurassic Park, recently announced that he would stop working for the company if his mentor, Sheinberg, were to leave...
Last Monday the trio met with MCA-Universal boss Lew Wasserman, at 81 still the Godfather of Show, and his deputy Sid Sheinberg. Wasserman and Sheinberg were rankling under the ownership of Matsushita, the Japanese conglomerate. MCA was home to both Geffen, whose current music company is housed there, and Spielberg, whose Amblin films are distributed mainly through Universal; the director regards Sheinberg as a mentor of nearly 30 years. "Lew and Sid's intentions were to get back control of their company," says Katzenberg, "and they hoped we'd be an ally to them. We assured them we would...
After Wasserman and Sheinberg gave their blessing to the trio, the contracts for the new company were signed -- in a mere six business days after the bustling Katzenberg had left Disney. And on the seventh day, did he rest? Of course not. He worked the phones...
...reasonable to assume that Wasserman and Sheinberg wouldn't care to lose their franchise player to unrestricted free agency; they surely hope his new company will decide it's not worth setting up an elaborate distribution apparatus and will instead release its films through Universal. (Spielberg and Katzenberg say they would prefer that; Geffen says Warner Bros. would be a second choice.) But when Matsushita's bosses meet with Wasserman and Sheinberg this week, they may take the long Japanese view and decide they don't want to unload MCA -- least of all to Geffen and Spielberg...
Spielberg, ever loyal to Sheinberg, says that "as long as Sid is at MCA, our entire enterprise will be in some fashion aligned with MCA." Katzenberg is more circumspect: "We didn't get into this to be an equity owner-player- manager of MCA and its assets. I don't want to say there's no set of circumstances under which that can't happen. But it's not our purpose, and I don't like reading it that...