6. Talent Agenting in the Age of Conglomerates

Abstract

“Now, everything in the talent agency business is different forever,” commented a talent agent I interviewed after the announcement, in late 2013, of the acquisition of the sports marketing giant IMG (International Management Group) by the major agency WME (William Morris Endeavor). Indeed, in the past decade, Hollywood talent agencies have had to undergo drastic changes, for which they are also largely responsible. These changes are intrinsically connected to transformations that have simultaneously affected and been generated by the studios, who are the agencies’ counterparts on the production side. This organizational mutation creates consequences in creative terms: it directly affects