during the conversation with Claudia Eller,‘s chief production officer. Over the nearly hourlong interview, Lourd touched on issues ranging from the state of play for talent at Hollywood’s major studios networks, the return of Bob Iger to Disney, the possibility of CAA going public and the chance that the creative community will be crippled by a strike next year.
CAA’s $750 million acquisition has spurred speculation again that the agency will eventually go public, following the path set last year by Endeavor, home to CAA’s biggest rival, WME. The answer amounted to: Don’t hold your breath, but never say never. Eller pointed to the whopping $465 million rights deal that Lourd helped Lionsgate orchestrate with Netflix for the rights to two sequels to the 2019 Rian Johnson hit “Knives Out.” The richness of the deal made headlines in 2021, and many took it to be a sign of content spending run amok. Lourd does not agree.
The spate of new leadership and management upheaval across Hollywood’s largest companies has made for a topsy-turvy environment for the traditional business of pitching and selling. Without prompting, Lourd expressed his regards for Bob Chapek, the longtime Disney executive who succeed Iger as CEO in February 2020 but made a hasty exit last month. On Chapek’s watch, Disney got into a public fight with Scarlett Johannson, a longtime Lourd client, over her compensation for the Marvel movie “Black Widow,” which debuted on Disney+ last year when theaters were mostly shuttered by the pandemic.