Variety Names Nine O’Melveny Partners to its 2023 Legal Impact Report
April 21, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CENTURY CITY—April 21, 2023—Variety has named nine O’Melveny partners to its 2023 “Legal Impact Report,” which recognizes the top attorneys in the entertainment business who “score wins for their clients and make deals to keep them ahead of the curve.”
The annual special report honored four members of O’Melveny’s Entertainment & Media Litigation Team and five members of O’Melveny’s Entertainment & Media Transactions Team.
The Litigation Team’s profile featured Trial Practice chair Daniel Petrocelli, Entertainment, Sports & Media Group co-chair Molly Lens, partner Matt Kline, and partner Drew Breuder. Variety recognized the team’s work on several headline-making matters, including:
- securing a new trial for NBCUniversal in a US$71 million profit participation case involving the TV show Columbo;
- winning a motion to compel arbitration and defeating a preliminary injunction for Warner Bros. in ongoing disputes with Village Roadshow;
- representing Marvel in a series of lawsuits involving copyright termination rights for several characters—including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, and Doctor Strange;
- resolving profit participation matters for Disney related to a number of television series;
- winning summary judgment for Disney in an idea theft case involving the animated motion picture Zootopia;
- defending Paramount Pictures in a copyright infringement lawsuit over the blockbuster motion picture Top Gun: Maverick.
The Transactions Team’s profile featured Entertainment, Sports & Media Group co-chair Amy Siegel, MediaTech Group co-chair Matthew Syrkin, partner Silvia Vannini, and former partner Bruce Tobey, who recently joined O’Melveny client Lionsgate as Executive Vice President and General Counsel. In a separate profile, Variety featured Transactions Team partner Lindsay Conner. Variety recognized the team’s work on several industry-shaping deals, including:
- serving as lead outside counsel for the launch of streaming service “SkyShowtime,” a joint venture of Comcast and Paramount Global;
- advising Starz on the sale of a 57% majority stake in Starzplay Arabia to an Abu Dhabi-based consortium led by E-Vision and ADQ;
- representing FuboTV in an exclusive multi-year deal with Ryan Reynolds’s production company Maximum Effort Productions for unscripted content;
- representing Australia’s Animal Logic in its pending acquisition by Netflix;
- advising Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment in connection with its release of Batman-based NFT collections in partnership with Palm NFT Studio;
- advising Disney and Marvel Studios in a 20-year licensing deal with Stan Lee Universe;
- representing ITV Studios America in its deal with Apple TV+ for the new scripted streaming series Franklin, starring Michael Douglas;
- advising Passionflix, a romance-focused streaming service run by Elon Musk’s sister Tosca Musk, on its Series A investment round led by AMC Networks.
Variety’s full Legal Impact Report can be viewed here.
O’Melveny has been synonymous with entertainment law since Hollywood’s Golden Age of the 1930s. The firm has repeatedly helped major players in film, television, digital media, production and distribution, gaming, music, and finance forge groundbreaking deals and resolve high-profile disputes. As shifting financial models and technological advances transform today’s entertainment and media business, O’Melveny remains a firm of choice for industry leaders.
About O’Melveny
It’s more than what you do: it’s how you do it. Across sectors and borders, in board rooms and courtrooms, we measure our success by yours. And in our interactions, we commit to making your O’Melveny experience as satisfying as the outcomes we help you achieve. Our greatest accomplishment is ensuring that you never have to choose between premier lawyering and exceptional service. So, tell us. What do you want to achieve? Visit us at www.omm.com; read our Insights 2023 report; hear what our lawyers, business professionals, and clients have to say in the “Our DNA” video series, learn more in our firm at-a-glance; and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Contact:
Brandon Jacobsen
O’Melveny & Myers LLP
+1 213 430 8024
bjacobsen@omm.com
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