George Clooney To Hedge Fund Honcho Daniel Loeb: Stop Spreading Fear

[TeamPooka]

http://www.deadline.com/2013/08/george-clooney-slams-sony-investor-daniel-loeb/

Working on post-production for his latest directing effort in Italy to ready for Sony’s December 18 release, Clooney spoke to me about his new movie and how it’s getting harder to make films like Monuments, Argo and the Smokehouse-produced August: Osage County. The discussion turned toward recent critical comments made by Third Point LLC hedge fund head Daniel Loeb and the pressure he is placing on Sony Pictures chiefs Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal, centered around the under-performing back to back summer films After Earth and White House Down. Loeb, whose fund controls 7% of Sony stock, is pressing for Sony to spin off its entertainment assets and likened those misfires to historic flops Waterworld and Ishtar. Though Clooney and Heslov base their Smokehouse Pictures banner at Sony, and Loeb’s influence is growing there, Clooney has never been shy about standing up to what he feels is wrong. So, buckle up.

Said Clooney: “I’ve been reading a lot about Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund guy who describes himself as an activist but who knows nothing about our business, and he is looking to take scalps at Sony because two movies in a row underperformed? When does the clock stop and start for him at Sony? Why didn’t he include Skyfall, the 007 movie that grossed a billion dollars, or Zero Dark Thirty or Django Unchained? And what about the rest of a year that includes Elysium, Captain Phillips, American Hustle and The Monuments Men? You can’t cherry pick a small time period and point to two films that didn’t do great. It makes me crazy. Fortunately, this business is run by people who understand that the movie business ebbs and flows and the good news is they are ignoring his calls to spin off the entertainment assets. How any hedge fund guy can call for responsibility is beyond me, because if you look at those guys, there is no conscience at work. It is a business that is only about creating wealth, where when they fail, they get bailed out and where nobody gets fired. A guy from a hedge fund entity is the single least qualified person to be making these kinds of judgments, and he is dangerous to our industry.”

Why is he dangerous?

“[Loeb] calls himself an activist investor, and I would call him a carpet bagger, and one who is trying to spread a climate of fear that pushes studios to want to make only tent poles,” Clooney said. “Films like Michael Clayton, Out of Sight, Good Night, And Good Luck, The Descendants and O, Brother Where Art Though?, none of these are movies studios are inclined to make. What he’s doing is scaring studios and pushing them to make decisions from a place of fear. Why is he buying stock like crazy if he’s so down on things? He’s trying to manipulate the market. I am no apologist for the studios, but these people know what they are doing. If you look at the industry track record, this business has made a lot of money. It creates a lot of jobs and is still one of the largest exporters in the world. To have this guy portraying it that Sony management is the bad stepchild and doesn’t know what it is doing and he’s going to fix it? That is like Walmart saying, let me fix your town, putting in their store, strangling all the small shops and getting everyone who worked in them to work for minimum wage with no health insurance.

“It’s crazy he has weight in this conversation at all,” Clooney continued. “If guys like this are given any weight because they’ve bought stock and suddenly feel they can tell us how to do our business — one he knows nothing about — this does great damage than trickles down. The board of directors starts saying, ‘Wait a minute. What guarantee do you have that this movie makes money?’ Well, there are no guarantees, but if you average out the films Will Smith and Channing Tatum have made, you will take that bet every time, even if sometimes it just doesn’t work out.” Clooney also said he believes that down the line both films have a chance to be a wash. Clooney was particularly sensitive on the subject of job creation.

“Hedge fund guys do not create jobs, and we do,” he said. “On the movie we just made, we put 300 people to work every day. I’m talking about nice, regular people, and when we shot in a town, we’d put another 300 people to work. This is an industry that thrives; there are thousands of workers who make films. You want to see what happens if outside forces start to scare the industry and studios just make tent poles out of fear? You will see a lot of crap coming out.”

......

The best attack on hedge fund assholes I've seen.....
More at the link....

[Safetykitten]

1. So sads. Clooney gets a taste of Wall Street, and oh dear, it concerns his life.

[TeamPooka]

4. It concerns thousands of lives.

[Safetykitten]

5. Odd timing on his part.

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. I find your flippant attitude about Clooney defending the livelihoods of thousands of people

quite disgusting. I am quite sure dan Loeb appreciates your support.

[Safetykitten]

7. Disgusting? I find celebrity causes when it effects them only on their schedule repulsive.

So he's pissed now? Now that it directly is part of his life? Since when was this a surprise to him? Just this week?

[el_bryanto]

8. Your response is really kind of bizarre

He was asked a question in an interview about the financing of movies and he had a comment. What should have said, if he were to live up to your moral standards? "I'm sorry I have no interest in talking about how Wall Street hurts me - I can't answer your question until I talk about everything else bad Wall Street is doing."

More to the point, i don't think he's made a point of only talking about it when it affects him; rather I think he's been pretty openly liberal and commented on a number of issues in the past.

I found his comments interesting and enlightening, personally.

Bryant

[demwing]

11. how do you figure this was only on his schedule?

Did you just make that up out of pure nothingness? When has Clooney ever been a shrinking violet? Celebrities are citizens, just like you and me. We are a country of empowered citizens. Governmental power is derived from the will and consent of its citizenry. When , in your opinion, is it OK for Clooney to speak up, and when is it not? When is it OK for him to act like a citizen?

I find that that the people who snark out on celebrities for speaking up on economics, politics, or affairs of state, are often motivated by bitterness and envy. They see actor as self interested and vain, by default and without merit.

Now that can't be true of you, so what's your excuse?

[TeamPooka]

13. several here have pointed out it does not only affect him but you keep pushing this false narrative.

1 feature film = as many as 2000 jobs.

[Boomerproud]

16. Darfur doesn't affect him and he's been there and been arrested for his activism.

Do you find that repulsive?

[TeamPooka]

18. ^ Boom goes the facts and truth. No response from the kitty now huh?

[Vanje]

22. /\ Yeah/\

Clooney has been very outspoken on social on social issues for years.
He's an activist, for the poor and mis-used, as well as a celebrity guy.
He is a good one. One of very few.

[Vanje]

23. Um. You ought to read up on the guy

before you dis him.
Clooney has a deep and long history as an activist for the under-represented.

He's one of the good guys.

You've made yourself look very foolish.

[TeamPooka]

24. That's why they are silent now.

[whatchamacallit]

2. Love this! n/t

[Scuba]

3. Excellent smackdown.

[Warpy]

9. Translation: Loeb bet on the studio losing money this year

and was utterly flummoxed when the rest of the world noticed their hits instead of their misses. Now he's trying to talk them down in the hope that his word carries any weight, at all.

It doesn't.

Dumb bastard doesn't understand that the adolescent shoot-em-ups generally finance the more serious fare that loses money at the box office but often makes it up with TV, streaming, and DVD royalties.

If there's any class of parasite that needs to be exterminated, it's the hedge fund parasite. Their job is to suck money out of the economy and pass it to the rich after lining their own pockets. They need to be made unprofitable. They're killing us.

[Safetykitten]

10. Answer there^

[TeamPooka]

21. um, no.

[Lucky Luciano]

12. He didn't short the stock. To the contrary he bought quite a lot.

His view is that if he can force a spin off if the entertainment company, then he will extract some money for himself. That is all.

[TeamPooka]

14. aka Greenmail

[millennialmax]

15. The influence of a vampire squid like Dan Loeb on Hollywood...

[TeamPooka]

19. :)

and true

[Logical]

17. Great guy! n-t

[DonCoquixote]

20. Hedge fund managers

can make as much profit ruining their assets as they can developing them, which is why they should be viewed with suspicion, at best.