Outside investors looking to invest in Hollywood is a story as old as the movie business itself. Over the years, money has poured in from Japan, Germany and Britain, as well as from U.S. billionaires like Philip F. Anschutz and Jeff Skoll, the co-founder of eBay Inc.
There have been a few success stories but lots of train wrecks for reasons ranging from Hollywood's exotic accounting ways to simply betting on the wrong star at the wrong time.
The latest slant has involved private equity funds that are flush with cash and looking for higher returns than are available on Wall Street. Over the past year, much of the action has involved outright acquisitions of property, such as Warner Music Group, Concord Records and DreamWorks Music Publishing.
Interesting. . .
BTW on old-fashioned Hollywood scandals and connections to the Clintons, I think that Pellicano thing might track back to some of this stuff from earlier eras--need to pull together my thoughts on that sometime, but that's been my impression.