With the world’s largest entertainment and tech firms circling, Sony Corp. decided to make an all-hands pitch for “Star Wars” director J.J. Abrams.
The Japanese electronics giant — the owner of Columbia Pictures — flew the writer-producer and his senior staff on a corporate jet to the sleek compound of Sony’s PlayStation video-game division in San Mateo, California. During the flight, entertainment chief Tony Vinciquerra and lieutenants including studio head Tom Rothman took turns pitching Abrams on their business.
It wasn’t enough. Abrams announced Thursday that his company, Bad Robot, had signed a five-year deal with WarnerMedia. Abrams will make films and shows for AT&T Inc.’s newly acquired entertainment division just as the phone giant and others launch new streaming services to address the shift to on-demand video from traditional TV.
“I am grateful for the chance to write, produce and direct work for this incredible company,” Abrams said in a statement. “We can’t wait to get started.”
The deal for Abrams, believed to be worth more than $250 million, says a lot about the frenzy among companies to lock up top talent as the streaming battle begins. The pursuit also reveals much about the individual companies, their management styles and strategy.
The past two years have seen a surge in open warfare for proven TV talent, including Netflix Inc.’s poaching of “Grey’s Anatomy” creator Shonda Rhimes and “Black-ish” writer Kenya Barris from Walt Disney Co.’s ABC.
Abrams, 53, was a particularly big prize thanks to his decades of creating TV hits like ABC’s “Alias” and “Lost,” as well as his successful reboot of film franchises such as “Star Trek,” which he first tackled in 2009.
Abrams has grand ambitions. He wants to turn Bad Robot into a household name. Not only does he want to produce TV shows and movies, he also wants characters from those projects to become toys, theme-park rides and video games. And he wants his company to own a piece of everything. With separate deals with Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures expiring around the same time, Abrams had a unique opportunity to create a single pact certain to be one of the richest in Hollywood.
For several months, some of the most powerful executives in media and technology ventured to Bad Robot’s offices in Santa Monica, California, a low-slung building topped by the sign “The National Typewriter Company.” There they met with Abrams’s wife — and co-chief executive officer — Katie McGrath, and his business partner Brian Weinstein. Abrams typically joined via Skype because he was in London shooting “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” scheduled to hit theaters in December.
Abrams’s team began with a presentation outlining their expectations. He didn’t want to just pitch movies, but instead sought a guaranteed number of slots on the studio’s calendar, akin to what his idol Steven Spielberg has had. He expected the winner to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to cover his staff and the development of new projects, and he also wanted them to help Good Robot, the company’s philanthropic arm.