2020-03-26_The_Hollywood_Reporter

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 66 MARCH 26, 2020

Photographed by Christopher Patey

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Just Cause, for the big screen. Other clients include

Warner Bros. and Bron Studios.

Please reboot My So-Called Life

TA LE N T

Gregory Slewett

Ziffren Brittenham

BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO SCHOOL OF LAW

Little Women scene-stealer Florence Pugh earned

her first Oscar nomination, and it was Slewett who

helped her take on that role as well as A24 horror

flick Midsommar. Meanwhile, Ye sterday breakout

Himesh Patel landed roles in Christopher Nolan’s

Te n e t and Station Eleven at HBO Max. The highlight

for Slewett was seeing Michael B. Jordan “flourish as

a producer and a voice behind the camera,” as he did

in Just Mercy. The actor will star in and produce Tom

Clancy adaptation Without Remorse.

If I could eat only one food forever, it’s “Kale salad

from Porta Via.”

TA LE N T

Jason Sloane

Sloane Offer

UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW

Sloane reps some of the biggest names in movies,

including the Chrises: Evans, who is in negotia-

tions for Warner Bros.’ Little Shop of Horrors, and

Pratt, who garnered a new deal for Jurassic World:

Dominion. Meanwhile, Tom Hardy got a hearty deal

for Venom 2, Mark Wahlberg mapped big bucks for

Uncharted, Will Smith received a princely sum for

King Richard, Michael Fassbender scored with Taika

Waititi’s Next Goal Wins and Anne Hathaway found

her way to Sesame Street.

Hollywood’s 2020 priority “Restoring the health of

the theatrical business and the business in general.”

TA LE N T

Mitch Smelkinson

Goodman Genow

LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL

Smelkinson’s first client, Craig Mazin — whom he’s

repped for 25 years — won numerous awards for

HBO’s Chernobyl, which he created and wrote, while

Anthony Hopkins was lauded for his performance in

The Two Popes. Elsewhere, Smelkinson negotiated

final-season deals for Modern Family’s Ty Burrell and

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Paul Dano’s turn as the

Riddler in Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman.

Please reboot Logan’s Run

TA LE N T

Cheryl Snow

Gang Tyre

UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW

Snow reps a slew of multihyphenates including

Jim Parsons, who signed an overall deal at Warner

Bros., where he’ll executive produce Call Me Cat,

and Irishman scribe Steven Zaillian, who’s showrun-

ning, writing and directing every episode of Ripley

for Showtime. Meanwhile, Ben Stiller will direct and

executive produce Severance for Apple TV+. While

streamers want to buy out the backend, she says

many clients still “want to play for the upside.”

Hollywood’s 2020 priority “Avoiding strikes.”

LITIGATION

Orin Snyder

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LAW SCHOOL

Snyder helped Jerry Seinfeld beat a lawsuit claim-

ing that he stole Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

from the guy who directed the pilot. He’s assisting

Facebook in navigating the morass triggered by

Cambridge Analytica’s data harvesting of tens of mil-

lions of users. Plus, he’ll defend AMC this summer in

a $270 million suit over Walking Dead profits.

David Hyman’s nearly 30-year law

career can be traced back to the sea-

son he spent as a ski bum in Aspen,

Colorado, before his first year of law

school. When he wasn’t on the slopes,

Hyman discovered a law firm in town

specializing in real estate. He figured

if he wanted to become a permanent

mountain dweller, he should become a

real estate lawyer.

But his plans were interrupted when

life (and a girl, now his wife) led him

to San Francisco, where he ditched

property law for the thrill of startup

culture and took a job at delivery ser-

vice Webvan during the height of the

dot-com boom. “I like to say it was well

ahead of its time,” chuckles Hyman,

who found himself with a J.D. from

University of Virginia and extensive

bankruptcy law experience but no job

after the company went belly up in 2001.

It was then that Hyman interviewed

for the general counsel role at an unprof-

itable, soon-to-go-public DVD-by-mail

startup called Netflix. In his nearly two

decades with the company, it has trans-

formed into a global entertainment

powerhouse with 167 million subscrib-

ers, and his job has grown with it. Today,

Hyman — who admits that keeping up

with new Netflix shows is “a full-time

hobby” — manages a team of more

than 650 legal professionals worldwide

who cut some of the biggest (and most

unique) deals in Hollywood.

Recently, that’s meant spending a fair

amount of time contemplating Netflix’s

new role as both a content producer

and a content distributor, and frequent

trips from Los Gatos to Los Angeles.

“I often talk about it like, ‘We’ve gone

from being a company that sells cars to

a company that manufactures and dis-

tributes cars,’ ” explains Hyman. Now,

“that means everything from negotiat-

ing the talent arrangements to dealing

with the physical production to dealing

with the labor guilds. All those areas of

expertise had to be developed at Netflix

over the last 18 years, and really the last

five years as we’ve ramped it up.”

That work will only become more

complex as Netflix continues to priori-

tize local productions overseas. While

it’s not quite the same thrill as com-

pleting a good ski run, for Hyman it’s

all part of the adventure: “Things are

always changing. It’s never the same

company, in many respects. I thrive in

that environment.”

‘It’s Never the Same Company’

NETFLIX GENERAL COUNSEL DAVID HYMAN HAS SURVIVED (AND THRIVED) ON

THE FRONT LINES OF THE STREAMING REVOLUTION By Natalie Jarvey

David Hyman, photographed March 4 at the Netflix

offices in Hollywood, will be presented the 2020 Raising

the Bar award at THR’s Power Lawyers breakfast.

RAISING THE BAR HONOREE

Slewett

Sloane

Smelkinson

Snow

Snyder

Spicer

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