William Morris Agency & Endeavor Merger A Go

The proposed new WME

“William Morris is cash-rich; Endeavor is client-rich. They need each other.”

A: In Hollywood we have Earthquakes and Agencyquakes, both rock our city’s foundation to the core, both cause collateral damage, and occasionally they relive some tension. It’s the story of a WMA with bags of money ($80 million annually) merging with a small promising agency named Endeavor with talent. After William Morris started losing some of it’s huge names, like Zac Efron, to the #1 agency in town, CAA ( Creative Artist Agency) they realized ina board meeting 19 to 1 that the need for a merger was unavoidable. The merge of the two agencies should bring in a revenue of $325 million annually, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to lose a few great agents in the cracks of this 7.0 Agencyquake, including non-scripted TV star Mark Itkin.

I remember hearing his name almost every time we went into William Morris but never meeting the man behind the legend. Now all my William Morris Agency t-shirts from last year have become collector’s items!

The jolt of the WMA-Endeavor merger is sure to unleash a frenzy of client and agent moving and shaking among the town’s other tenpercenteries. The fallout began Monday ayem even before the votes were confirmed as WMA’s David Lonner, who reps heavyweight multihyphenate J.J. Abrams, confirmed he would not be making the move to the new agency. Endeavor co-founder and partner Tom Strickler also announced his resignation, saying he plans to segue out of the talent rep biz entirely. And WMA’s highly successful nonscripted TV chief, Mark Itkin, is said to be in play and possibly bound for CAA after being left off of the WME board.

Naturally, the merger will keep the new William Morris Endeavor agency (WME for short) in business, but they’ll have to survive the aftershocks of resignation. William Morris has survived 111 years in the business and has merged before, so it’s not going anywhere.

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