Welcome back to What I’m Hearing, where I’m happy to report that, thanks to a couple generous WIH readers, I’m now in possession of two Tom Cruise white chocolate coconut cakes. I’m hosting a tasting party for a few friends tomorrow evening, and I’ll reveal my review on Monday.

But tonight, I’ve got an analysis of the big Hollywood publicist lawsuits that dropped, fittingly, as a Thanksgiving eve news dump. Plus, some Oscar race thoughts and Spotify Wrapped for Hollywood executives. (Trust me, it makes sense.)

P.S.A.: I’m gearing up for my annual Hero and Villain of the Year issues, plus my 2025 predictions. If you’ve got ideas, let me know!

Need a holiday gift ASAP? Just click here to give Puck. Got a news tip or an idea for me? Reply to this email or message me anonymously on Signal at 310-804-3198.

Let’s begin…

• How tough are the times for indies?: This tough: Picturestart, the well-funded film and TV production company run by former Lionsgate executive Erik Feig, just let go of its president, Samie Kim Falvey. This is a company that’s got several movies and shows in various stages of production. But it raised money pre-pandemic and wasn’t making enough to justify the overhead. These conversations are happening all over town.
• The Oscars panic plateaus: With Wicked now a bona fide best picture contender thanks to its inclusion in the AFI top 10, the Academy is breathing a little easier about the popularity of the likely nominees. Even if Gladiator II falls out of the 10 picks, which I think is likely, Wicked will probably be joined by Dune: Part Two and one of the animated hits, Inside Out 2 or The Wild Robot, to at least complement the small indies like Anora and The Brutalist that are expected to dominate. It’s no Barbenheimer, which helped lift the March show’s ratings, but the Wicked demo overlaps nicely with people who care about the Oscars.
• Box office over/under: Speaking of Wicked, no major releases this weekend, but it’ll be interesting to see whether Universal can keep up its momentum and lure repeat business. I’ll take the over on the expected $40 million.

So much so that in 2005, after Tom Cruise nuked his public persona on Oprah’s couch and in the “You’re glib” Matt Lauer interview, the meltdown was attributed within the industry as much to Cruise’s split from Kingsley as his descent into Scientology lunacy. A few years later, Cruise’s profile was back under careful supervision—but by Amanda Lundberg at 42 West, Dart’s new startup, not by PMK. It remains with Lundberg today.

So it was telling to see the parent company of what’s now called R&CPMK (I’ll just use PMK) sue the latest and largest group of defectors—on Thanksgiving eve, of course, in order to generate less attention. This marked the first time in decades that the storied firm has used litigation against departing employees—though, according to sources, PMK and its C.E.O., Cindi Berger, have threatened and even extracted financial concessions from others.

Man, what a weenie move. Yes, soliciting clients for a new company while still employed by the old one is actionable, and so is absconding with valuable trade secrets—if that actually happened as alleged. Dana Kravetz, 2PM Sharp’s lead lawyer, insists it didn’t, and I’m not even sure what would constitute a valuable trade secret in the celebrity P.R. game. It’s not like there is a secret handbook for pitching an SNL host or leaking an actor’s breakup news to People. On the other hand, PMK sources insist that key client documents and firm strategy plans were taken.

Regardless, the sense I’m getting from conversations in the talent community is that the lawsuit is a sign of fear and weakness at PMK, as well as a not-so-subtle message to its other publicists to stay put—or else. “This is a clear bully tactic and a transparent, desperate attempt to save face,” Kravetz told me today. “We are fully prepared to fight these baseless lawsuits.” In response, Berger referred me to IPG’s lead litigator, Robert Whitman of Seyfarth Shaw, who punted me—fittingly, I guess—to his firm’s own publicist, who declined to comment beyond the complaint. (A rep for IPG also declined to comment.)

This is also personal. The litigation was initiated by Berger, herself, not the parent company or her boss, Octagon R&CPMK C.E.O. John Shea, according to a source familiar with her thinking. Several relatively junior people were named as defendants, sending a pointed message to young employees thinking of leaving. And the dual suits in New York and California will increase the cost of mounting a defense. All because Berger believes the 2PM Sharp defectors left the “wrong” way—and likely thinks she can extract some go-away money.

If that sounds familiar, it’s how CAA described its recent lawsuit against the agents who bailed to start Range Media Partners. Entrenched players, especially those in challenged businesses, talk a lot about the “right” and “wrong” way to leave companies. But the “right” way usually corresponds to ensuring that the entrenched player isn’t made to feel remotely uncomfortable. That’s why CAA blesses those who leave for its preferred jobs, and why managing partner Richard Lovett instead spearheaded the “lawless midnight raid” litigation against a group of agents who defected to rival UTA in 2015. Same with the Range guys, whose exit was considered so disruptive and disrespectful by CAA C.E.O. Bryan Lourd that the agency turned a private arbitration over financial obligations into a public lawsuit for “unfair competition.” Again, regardless of whether it’s legally warranted or not, it’s a weenie move.

Stars typically pay $7,000 to $10,000 a month at the big firms, less elsewhere—and negotiable everywhere. Many clients go on and off the clock, depending on when they are promoting a Netflix movie or their skinny margarita brand. So P.R. people often juggle dozens of clients in various states of self-promotion (or self-defense), getting paid some months and not others, at the client’s whim. Not great, and certainly not as lucrative as repping corporate brands. But hey, you also get to hold your client’s tiny purse at a premiere, or have an awkward conversation with their family member who won’t stop tweeting, or—if you’re really lucky—endure regular verbal abuse from a client’s fame-hungry spouse because nobody in the media wants to talk to them.

For that reason, among others, the list of top talent P.R. firms born from PMK is long and distinguished: Slate (Simon Halls, Robin Baum, and Stephen Huvane), Viewpoint (Jennifer Allen, Melissa Kates, and others), Kovert (Lewis Kay), Align (Nicole Perez-Krueger), Full Coverage (Kristen Foster), Luna (Lauren Auslander), Jill Fritzo, Ame Van Iden, Cheryl Maisel—the list goes on. And now, 2PM Sharp. That’s not even including Michael Nyman’s 2018 exit as C.E.O. of PMK to start an investment and advisory firm.

You don’t need me to tell you that talent P.R. is a much different job today than it was even 10 years ago. Now, a well-timed Deuxmoi post can be far more effective than an EW cover. Chicken Shop Date is the new Tonight Show. Digital creators and the influencer economy are the growth areas. And most of the firms offer what is essentially digital brand management as well as traditional P.R. There’s a generational shift at these firms, too. Publicists, like other reps, grow with their clients. And while I’m generalizing: If you look at the PMK client list, there’s a ton of older stars like Kevin Costner, or Billy Crystal, or Eddie Murphy. Berger, in a recent presentation to Shea and others, is said to have laid out a strategy to grow the more youthful categories.

Don’t get me wrong: PMK still does fine. Those legacy stars, like Denzel Washington and Billy Bob Thornton—or even those one generation down like Chris Pratt—still pay the bills, and the unit is said to be profitable. Hollywood talent P.R. represents a sexy yet small part of these large firms’ overall branding and corporate marketing business. (I’m also pretty sure that Diddy, a big PMK client for a while, is no longer on the roster.) While parent IPG doesn’t break out financials for PMK, the Octagon unit where PMK resides is doing well—much better than IPG overall, whose share price is down 11 percent this year. And PMK isn’t alone in suffering major defections; rivals ID PR and 42 West have also lost groups who started their own firms.

But PMK is not what it was, and suing over a group of defectors raises a red flag. Regardless of whether they exited the “right” or “wrong” way, the message to the broader community is that this loss really hurt PMK, and the leadership doesn’t have a different way to respond. It’s tough to spin that.

• Hollywood Executives’ 2024 Spotify Wrapped

  This year you passed on 1,283 spec scripts…

  You mentioned that you had something similar in development 928 times…

  You said you were looking for “HIGH CONCEPT THRILLERS” 400 times…

  You answered, “We’re really just looking for great material” 736 times…

  This year you watched 0 foreign films…

  You attended 8 film festivals and saw 36 dramas about generational trauma from 36 different nepo baby directors…

  You announced 284 times in meetings, “It’s really tough out there right now”…

  You ended a call exactly 7,000 times with, “Bring it back to us when it’s fully packaged”…

  You fell asleep 30 nights reading 28 different specs...

  You answered, “Oh yeah, I heard it’s pretty good, I gotta watch it” 10,384 times about every Apple/Peacock show that had zero marketing behind it…

  You said, “There’s really just one slot for an Upper Level/Showrunner for a three-person room” a total of 5,624 times…

  You felt bad every single day for agents and execs who don’t watch the unbelievable Instagram stories delivered by Matt Rosen!

Got a question, comment, complaint or a wine that pairs well with coconut cake? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.