The Hollywood Reporter's front-page article detailed the WMA packaging incident down to the minutiae.
The report traced everything from Jonathan Friedman's initiative to launch the package, through the major studios' wariness of WMA shifting to packaging and their collusion to sabotage it, right up to Jonathan Friedman's dissatisfaction with Norman Brokaw's concessions and the uneven profit splits, culminating in their full-blown fallout—like the writer had witnessed it all firsthand.
In truth, besides an internal leak, the article couldn't have come from anywhere else.
WMA's factionalism was an open secret.
Exposing this infighting scandal would inflict immeasurable damage on WMA, but if president Norman Brokaw and VP Jonathan Friedman took the fall, plenty stood to gain.
After all, between just Norman Brokaw and Jonathan Friedman alone, seven other VPs waited to climb higher. Countless other WMA agents grinding away for promotion were even more numerous.
Any one of them had motive enough.
Caught off guard by The Hollywood Reporter's bombshell, WMA's leadership scrambled to handle the media onslaught without even time to probe the leaker.
That same morning the article dropped, in an interview with a Los Angeles Times New York correspondent, WMA chairman Lou Wasserman firmly denied all the allegations, even revealing that WMA had reached a preliminary deal with Fox, insisting the first package hadn't failed—so no executive infighting existed.
But when media turned to Fox for confirmation, president Ronald Goldberg's response was equivocal: neither confirming nor denying, just saying the company was still in talks with WMA and couldn't disclose details.
This was the outcome of WMA and Fox's emergency huddle.
Fox had broken the tacit pact with the other majors by quietly trying to snag The Butterfly Effect, and now exposed, their execs looked foolish to peers. But Ronald Goldberg knew that fully denying it now, leaving WMA humiliated, would invite payback from them later.
Beyond coaxing Fox to play along, WMA brass privately reached out to The Hollywood Reporter's majority owner, Tichi-Kassel, trading favors for a promise of no more surprise WMA-bashing stories.
After a frantic day, WMA thought they'd clawed back enough room to maneuver.
The next day, another leak surfaced.
The source had done their homework, switching venues to dodge WMA's greased palms at The Hollywood Reporter, landing instead in Hollywood's other paper, Daily Variety.
Daily Variety was the daily arm of Variety Inc., pairing with the weekly Variety magazine as their twin print platforms. Actually, The Hollywood Reporter split similarly between daily paper and weekly mag, just without separate names.
Daily Variety's scoop delved deeper, even touching WMA president Norman Brokaw's "compromised" post-concession package details.
It highlighted Matthew Broderick's whopping $5 million payday versus the scriptwriter's stingy buyout for The Butterfly Effect, pinpointing those deals as the spark for Norman Brokaw and Jonathan Friedman's clash.
With Daily Variety's follow-up, papers like the Los Angeles Times jumped in, the story threatening to snowball.
Faced with this, WMA and Fox grimly kept denying much of the press reports.
But everyone knew: to avert bigger fallout, aggressive action to swiftly and thoroughly quash the scandal was urgent.
And so it went until July 21.
Monday.
After a chaotic weekend, WMA chairman Lou Wasserman and CEO Lee Stevens followed the early-returning Norman Brokaw—who'd gone ahead to steady things—to the West Coast.
At 9 AM, in WMA's spacious Camino Street headquarters conference room, just four sat: the two East Coast bigshots and the incident's two key players.
"Yesterday in New York, I spoke personally with News Corp chairman Mr. Murdoch," said Lou Wasserman from the head of the table. At seventy-five, he looked weary, but his gaze remained sharp as it swept his three subordinates. "Mr. Murdoch agreed—Fox will cooperate as much as possible on The Butterfly Effect. But adjustments are needed. And let me state upfront: what I say next is final. No objections—just execute. Fail, and you can pack up and go."
With that, Lou Wasserman glanced at his notes, then looked up at Norman Brokaw and Jonathan Friedman. "Since we've denied much of the media leaks, the original plan must change. First, swap the lead—no more Matthew. And Norman, I've greenlit Fox's offer: Matthew will star in their film Project X. They said they sent the script your way already, right?"
Norman Brokaw nodded but asked, "Lou, what about Matthew's pay?"
Lou Wasserman fixed on him. "$3 million."
Hearing the figure, Norman Brokaw shot up. "That's too low!"
"Just $3 million," Lou Wasserman said, his tone brooking no argument. "Or you can walk."
Norman Brokaw's mouth twitched, but he finally nodded, sinking back down reluctantly.
Jonathan Friedman could bail from WMA in a pinch and jump ship; Norman Brokaw couldn't. As president of North America's—hell, the world's—biggest talent agency, unless he started his own, no other firm would slot him in.
But going solo, even poaching top stars, he'd never reclaim his current power.
Seeing Norman sit, Lou Wasserman nodded approvingly before turning to Jonathan Friedman.