2020-03-26 The Hollywood Reporter

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 65 MARCH 26, 2020

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indie film deal ever by selling worldwide rights to

client Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton live capture

to Disney for $75 million. Rose also spearheaded the

pact for Miranda’s film adaptation of In the Heights

and his directing debut with Tick, Tick Boom.

Elsewhere, Rose closed a rich multiyear overall deal

for The Affair co-creator Sarah Treem with Fox 21

and reps theater-film crossovers including Kenneth

Lonergan and Tony Kushner.

We’ve hit peak content when “We’re there already.”

CORPORATE/TECH

Bobby Rosenbloum

Greenberg Traurig

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL

Rosenbloum has been at the fore of the music

industry’s shift to digital over the past two decades.

Lately, that means serving as lead counsel for

TikTok owner ByteDance on content deals, assisting

Spotify with its music licensing agreements and

leading music content deals for Equinox Media and

SoulCycle. He also works with Amazon Studios

and Luminary.

If I could eat only one food forever, it’s “Sushi.”

TA LE N T

Gretchen Rush

Hansen Jacobson

UCLA SCHOOL OF LAW

Rush is a magnet for top female talent. She brokered

deals for Jennifer Lawrence to star in Adam

McKay’s Netflix movie Don’t Look Up and for Reese

Witherspoon and Kerry Washington to headline

and produce Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere. But

her biggest deal of the year was Game of Thrones

creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ five-year

overall pact with Netflix. “It was my entire summer,”

says Rush of the negotiation, which involved six

other buyers.

If I could eat only one food forever, it’s “Fries!”

CORPORATE

Faiza Saeed

Cravath

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL

After repping Disney in its acquisition of 21st

Century Fox’s major entertainment assets and

Time Warner in its sale to AT&T, Saeed took on

more mega-deals, advising Viacom’s board on the

company’s $30 billion recombination with CBS

Corp. and Hasbro on its $4 billion acquisition of

Entertainment One. She also represented Disney

in its $10.6 billion sale of the Fox Regional Sports

Networks to Sinclair.

TA LE N T

Michael Schenkman

Goodman Genow

UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF LAW

It was a whirlwind year as Schenkman’s firm Bloom

Hergott dissolved with the retirement of Jake

Bloom and Alan Hergott, reconstituted as Goodman

Schenkman, then merged with Stone Genow. “We

received kudos from various members of the com-

munity, including some of our friendly competitors,”

he notes. Meanwhile, he inked Christopher Nolan and

Emma Thomas’ rich deal for Te n e t, and a two-picture

pact with Universal for M. Night Shyamalan.

Hollywood’s 2020 priority “Avoiding self-inflicted

disruption while the world experiences unprec-

edented disruption.”

TA LE N T

Ira Schreck

Schreck Rose

COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL

While his roster includes stars like Kevin Hart, Sarah

Jessica Parker and Ang Lee, it was boosting the

careers of two newcomers that Schreck says were

the “deepest experiences of the past year.” One is

bringing deaf actress Lauren Ridloff (The Walking

Dead) into the Marvel fray in Eternals and the other

was setting up Ali Stroker in the stage production

of Oklahoma!, making her the first actress to use a

wheelchair for mobility on Broadway.

Please reboot The Odd Couple

LITIGATION

Robert Schwartz

Quinn Emanuel

USC GOULD SCHOOL OF LAW

Schwartz scored a win for Elon Musk in December

when a judge ruled the billionaire didn’t defame a

British cave explorer when he called him “pedo guy”

on Twitter. He also helped Kanye West settle with

EMI Publishing after an eight-month battle and is

quietly representing victims of sexual harassment

and abuse. Says Schwartz, “We hold people account-

able, we don’t hold press conferences.”

My biggest challenge now is “Finding time to

goof off.”

TA LE N T

P.J. Shapiro

Ziffren Brittenham

USC GOULD SCHOOL OF LAW

TV’s golden age has kept Shapiro busy this year.

He shepherded Fleabag phenom Phoebe Waller-

Bridge’s deal at Amazon and Succession head Jesse

Armstrong’s overall pact at HBO deal. He explains,

“These mega overall deals have essentially shifted

the backend to the front end.” On the features side,

he helped transition John Cena from wrestler to full-

time movie star, with roles in the ninth Fast & Furious

movie and Warner Bros.’ Suicide Squad sequel.

If I could eat only one food forever, it’s “Pad Thai

with a side of pizza and a scoop of ice cream ... and

maybe a slice of butter cake.”

TA LE N T

Nina Shaw

Del Shaw

COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL

Time’s Up co-founder Shaw remains committed to

equitable representation in her day job, too: She

brokered Nia DaCosta’s jump from indie to studio

filmmaking with Candyman, negotiated John Legend

and his banner Get Lifted’s ABC overall deal, and is

helping Oscar winner Regina King expand her talents

with a Netflix multiyear producing pact and her

feature directorial debut One Night in Miami.

TA LE N T

Lawrence Shire

Grubman Shire

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW

Shire guided George Cheeks out of NBC and into

a shiny new role as president and CEO of CBS

Entertainment Group. The veteran NYC lawyer is

also working with Richard Plepler on his new venture,

Eden Productions, and its exclusive deal at Apple.

Shire continues to represent talent including LeBron

James, Drake and Robert De Niro.

Hollywood’s 2020 priority “Keeping

everyone healthy.”

CORPORATE

Amy Siegel

O’Melveny & Myers

LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL

Siegel repped ViacomCBS in its deal with beIN

Media to acquire a 49 percent stake in Miramax,

and Univision in its rebranding of its sports network

Univision Deportes as TUDN in its alliance with

Mexico’s Grupo Televisa. She also worked with

Square Enix in deals to adapt video games, such as

we all have a platform. My platform

isn’t as big as those of my clients,

but I support them, speaking pas-

sionately about the things they care

about. I wanted to tell them that

I’m modeling that behavior, too,

or following their lead for those

who are out in the world having

conversations that are sometimes

challenging to have.

Would you feel comfortable sharing

your own abortion story with THR?

I was 17 and living in Japan. I had left

college and was seeing the world, and

I became pregnant. I went back to

the U.S. to have an abortion because

in Japan a woman could only have

an abortion through a lot of special

waivers. It was not a hard decision,

because it would have completely

derailed all my professional aspira-

tions and I would have been an unwed

teenage mother without a college

degree. I would have had a very dif-

ficult path to the life that I have now,

and [so] it was not even a question. My

family was supportive.

In your legal view, how realistic is it that

Roe v. Wade would be overturned?

It already feels like [abortion access]

has been changed for women who

have even the obstacle of waiting a

day; for someone who has a job where

they can’t take off a day’s work or lose

a day’s wages; for women who have to

travel hours and hours, when many

don’t have cars. Access for all women,

regardless of income, regardless of

location, to have safe abortions is

already dramatically diminished and

it’s horrible. It’s infuriating and it

makes me more passionate to assist

in doing that work.

What can the entertainment industry

do to protect abortion rights?

The more the stories that are told on

TV and film destigmatize this choice

and show a wider variety of responses

in storylines when women have

pregnancies they don’t want to carry

to term, the more comfortable people

will be in having these conversa-

tions and understanding why women

have to have control over the choices

around their reproduction.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Saeed

Schenkman

Schreck

Schwartz

Shapiro

Shaw

Shire

Siegel

10fea_lawyers1-17_L [P]{Print}_53606986.indd 65 3/25/20 10:42 AM