How did superagent Bryan Lourd became one of the most powerful people in the history of Hollywood? sherman4949 has the story.
When Plepler decided he would leave HBO in early 2019, Lourd was one of a very small handful of people with which he shared his decision weeks before he made it public or told his then-boss, AT&T CEO John Stankey.Still, in spite of his charm, Lourd is an agent. His primary role is to extract money for his clients. That's not entirely lost on Zaslav.
A standard agent has a list of clients and works to get those people as much money as possible. But Lourd's clients are such bankable stars that it's equally important for Hollywood executives to be friendly with him as it is beneficial for Lourd and CAA. Of all the people CNBC spoke with for this story, not one had a single critical thing to say about Lourd, other than blaming him for ballooning talent costs.
Step 2: Those executives, many of whom can at least partially thank Lourd for their jobs and high salaries, come to him to staff projects.Step 4: Those projects deliver billions in revenue for executives.*