Entertainment
Before Ari Emanuel Ruled Hollywood, He Was Replacing Michael Ovitz’s Toilet Paper
In his memoir Roll the Calls, Emanuel recalls coffee runs, couch surfing and the harsh realities of starting at the bottom.
Long before he negotiated billion-dollar deals, represented some of entertainment’s biggest stars and helped build a global business empire, Ari Emanuel was completing coffee runs and making sure another man’s bathroom had enough toilet paper.
That man happened to be Michael Ovitz, the legendary co-founder of Creative Artists Agency who was once considered the most powerful talent agent in Hollywood.
In an excerpt from his new memoir, Roll the Calls, Emanuel revisits his earliest days in Los Angeles—when he had little money, no permanent place to live and only a distant view of the influence he would eventually command.
The result is an unvarnished picture of old Hollywood’s mailroom system: exhausting hours, rigid hierarchies, relentless criticism and young employees competing for the smallest opportunity to prove themselves.
Arriving in Hollywood with nowhere permanent to stay
After graduating from Macalester College in 1983, Emanuel briefly pursued professional racquetball and worked for New York talent agent Robert Lantz.
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His ambitions, however, were fixed on Hollywood.
Emanuel became fascinated by Ovitz, whose reputation had transformed CAA into one of the entertainment industry’s most feared and influential agencies. In 1987, he moved to Los Angeles and joined the company as a trainee.
The move was far from glamorous. According to his memoir, Emanuel initially relied on friends and acquaintances for places to sleep, moving between couches while attempting to establish himself in an unfamiliar city.
There were no celebrity dinners, private aircraft or multimillion-dollar contracts waiting for him. His daily reality involved sorting mail, collecting coffee, running errands and responding instantly to the demands of senior agents.
Yet even the most ordinary tasks carried enormous weight. A late delivery or incorrectly prepared drink could become a public lesson in failure.
The CAA mailroom was Hollywood’s unofficial boot camp
The mailroom at CAA was not simply an administrative department. It functioned as an intense training programme and a testing ground for aspiring agents.
Young employees were expected to learn the names, habits and preferences of powerful executives and clients. They delivered scripts, answered telephones, organised paperwork and studied the business whenever a spare moment appeared.
Emanuel’s responsibilities reportedly extended to checking Ovitz’s private bathroom and replacing its toilet paper. It was the kind of assignment designed to reinforce the distance between those at the bottom of the agency and those already sitting at its summit.
For ambitious trainees, however, humiliation was part of the bargain. The mailroom offered access to a business that was otherwise nearly impossible to enter. Those who survived could become assistants, and assistants might eventually earn the right to represent clients of their own.
Emanuel ultimately rose from trainee to mailroom chief and then became an agent’s assistant. Reading scripts remained difficult because of his dyslexia, but he took material home at night and forced himself to keep learning.
A culture powered by shouting and fear
Emanuel’s account also explores a workplace culture in which yelling was treated almost as a management technique.
“Sometimes it feels as if the yeller is actually getting off,” he writes, before suggesting that some senior employees were simply repeating the treatment they had received during their own mailroom years.
The observation captures a cycle familiar to many competitive workplaces: one generation suffers under an unforgiving system, rises through it and then subjects the next generation to the same behaviour.
Emanuel does not present himself as entirely separate from that culture. His own temper later became one of his defining characteristics, earning him a reputation as an exceptionally forceful—and frequently confrontational—negotiator.
That personality also helped inspire Ari Gold, the explosive fictional talent agent played by Jeremy Piven in HBO’s Entourage.
In Roll the Calls, Emanuel examines rage not simply as a personal flaw but as a source of energy that helped him survive rejection, professional insecurity and the pressure to prove himself.
His departure from CAA was equally explosive
Emanuel spent approximately two years at CAA before former colleagues invited him to join the newly established InterTalent.
When he informed Ovitz that he intended to leave, the conversation allegedly became heated. Emanuel has previously claimed that Ovitz threatened to destroy the careers of those involved, prompting him to pick up a chair and demand to know whether he was being threatened.
Ovitz has disputed Emanuel’s account of the confrontation.
Looking back, Emanuel has acknowledged that challenging one of the industry’s most powerful figures in such a manner was reckless. But the episode also illustrates the stubbornness that would repeatedly shape his career.
He later worked at International Creative Management before co-founding Endeavor in 1995. The agency eventually merged with the historic William Morris Agency, creating one of Hollywood’s dominant representation businesses.
From delivering coffee to reshaping global entertainment
Emanuel’s career eventually expanded far beyond traditional talent representation.
He helped lead Endeavor’s acquisition of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in a deal valued at more than $4 billion. UFC was later combined with WWE under TKO Group Holdings, turning Emanuel into an influential figure across entertainment and professional sports.
His client relationships have included celebrated figures such as Oprah Winfrey, Martin Scorsese, Larry David and Mark Wahlberg.
Roll the Calls, written with Pulitzer Prize-winning author J. R. Moehringer, does not simply celebrate that ascent. It examines Emanuel’s dyslexia, volatile personality, professional feuds, family relationships and the personal cost of pursuing power with relentless intensity.
The audiobook is narrated by Bob Odenkirk, one of the significant early clients in Emanuel’s career. The memoir was published by Alfred A. Knopf on September 22.
The most revealing part of Emanuel’s story may not be the fortune or influence he eventually accumulated. It is the distance between the man who now commands boardrooms and the young employee who once slept on other people’s couches, carried coffee through office corridors and quietly replaced his boss’s toilet paper.
Entertainment
How ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Returned to Cinemas and Reclaimed Box Office Glory
Renewed ticket sales send Marvel’s 2019 finale past ‘Avatar’ to lead the all-time global chart again.
Seven years after its original release, Avengers: Endgame has unfinished business at the box office.
The Marvel Studios blockbuster has overtaken James Cameron’s Avatar to become the highest-grossing film worldwide once again. According to The Walt Disney Company’s October 4 announcement, Endgame now holds an estimated $2.9255 billion, narrowly ahead of Avatar’s $2.9237 billion. That puts just $1.8 million between two of cinema’s biggest hits.
The lead is small. The comeback, however, is substantial: a film released in 2019 has drawn enough fresh ticket sales to rewrite the all-time chart.
The ‘Encore’ release that tipped the balance
The latest theatrical run, titled Avengers Endgame: Encore, has earned $126 million worldwide, according to TheWrap. That includes $36.2 million in North America and $89.8 million from international markets—the extra business that pushed the film back into first place.
Audiences also had a reason to return beyond revisiting a familiar blockbuster. TheWrap reports that the reissue features a modified ending and three new scenes during and after the credits, connected to Avengers: Doomsday. The release therefore serves two purposes: bringing an established favourite back to cinemas and giving viewers a bridge to the next Avengers story.
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A rivalry with a history of reversals
This is another change of leadership in a box office contest that has lasted for years.
Endgame first displaced Avatar in 2019. Cameron’s science-fiction epic regained the crown following its Chinese re-release in 2021. Now, another theatrical return has swung the result in Marvel’s favour. Re-releases have become a decisive part of the competition, extending both films’ earning lives well beyond their original runs.
The distinction matters: this is the record for worldwide theatrical revenue without adjustment for inflation, including re-release earnings. It measures money collected rather than the number of tickets sold.
Why ‘Endgame’ matters to ‘Doomsday’
The timing gives Marvel’s comeback an added significance. Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to reach cinemas on December 18, 2026, and Disney has positioned Endgame as an important foundation for that next chapter.
Explaining the connection, Anthony Russo said: “You really need to pick the story up from where you left it in Endgame.”
That makes this return more than a victory lap. A film remembered for closing a major chapter of Marvel’s story is now helping introduce the next one—and, along the way, has taken back Hollywood’s most closely watched box office title.
Entertainment
Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Faces a Tough Opening: Could ‘Verity’ Take the Lead?
Cruise’s star power meets a fresh box office challenge as the Colleen Hoover adaptation emerges as a formidable rival.
Tom Cruise has spent years persuading audiences to watch him attempt the impossible. With Digger, the challenge is different: convincing moviegoers to embrace an eccentric, darkly comic character who bears little resemblance to his familiar action heroes.
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, the film arrives in US cinemas on October 2, 2026, carrying considerable expectations. Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an oil tycoon confronting a catastrophe connected to his company’s actions. It is a conspicuous departure for an actor whose recent screen identity has been shaped by spectacular stunts and blockbuster franchises.
Yet the conversation before release has increasingly turned from Cruise’s transformation to a more uncomfortable question: how many people will buy a ticket?
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A costly film facing a modest opening
According to Koimoi’s September 30 report, Digger was tracking for a North American opening below $15 million, against a reported production cost of approximately $125 million. These are reported estimates, rather than confirmed earnings or a final accounting of the film’s costs.
That gap explains the concern surrounding Warner Bros.. An expensive production needs sustained attendance, and a subdued debut would place greater pressure on subsequent weekends and overseas markets.
An opening forecast cannot establish a film’s eventual profit or loss. It can, however, reveal how much work remains for the campaign.
Reviews have complicated the pitch
The critical response has been sharply divided. People reported reactions ranging from admiration for the film’s audacity and Cruise’s commitment to criticism of its scale, coherence and tone.
For potential ticket buyers, that creates an uncertain proposition. Cruise’s presence attracts attention, but attention does not automatically translate into enthusiasm for an unfamiliar kind of film.
The promotional campaign has leaned into that disagreement. The Guardian described advertising that places harsh reactions alongside praise, using the controversy itself to generate interest. Whether that approach encourages curiosity or deepens hesitation remains an open question.
Why ‘Verity’ makes the weekend more intriguing
The Hollywood Reporter expects Digger to open substantially behind Verity, the Amazon MGM Studios adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel. hollywoodreporter.com
Starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, Verity is also scheduled to open on October 2. Its psychological-thriller premise centres on a writer who discovers a disturbing manuscript while completing another author’s book series.
From a marketing perspective, an established novel and a recognisable thriller setup could offer a more immediate hook. Digger, by comparison, asks audiences to take a greater leap into unfamiliar territory.
The audience verdict is still ahead
Cruise has clearly committed to that leap. At the London premiere, Reuters reported that his transformation involved prosthetics and a padded bodysuit, alongside a demanding performance.
The commercial outcome remains unresolved. Strong audience recommendations could give Digger momentum beyond its initial forecasts. A weak response would make its financial challenge harder.
For now, the film’s biggest suspense lies beyond the screen: whether curiosity about Cruise’s unusual gamble becomes an opening-weekend ticket purchase.
Entertainment
‘Verity’ Could Outopen ‘Digger’: Why Tom Cruise Faces a Tough Contest
The competing releases raise a compelling question: which film will persuade more audiences to buy a ticket?
Tom Cruise has spent years persuading audiences to watch him attempt the impossible. With Digger, the challenge is different: convincing moviegoers to embrace an eccentric, darkly comic character who bears little resemblance to his familiar action heroes.
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, the film arrives in US cinemas on October 2, 2026, carrying considerable expectations. Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an oil tycoon confronting a catastrophe connected to his company’s actions. It is a conspicuous departure for an actor whose recent screen identity has been shaped by spectacular stunts and blockbuster franchises.
Yet the conversation before release has increasingly turned from Cruise’s transformation to a more uncomfortable question: how many people will buy a ticket?
ALSO READ : Emmy Nominations Announcement Gets a Star Twist… Liza Colón-Zayas & Jeff Hiller Set to Reveal 2026 TV Nominees
A costly film facing a modest opening
According to Koimoi’s September 30 report, Digger was tracking for a North American opening below $15 million, against a reported production cost of approximately $125 million. These are reported estimates, rather than confirmed earnings or a final accounting of the film’s costs.
That gap explains the concern surrounding Warner Bros.. An expensive production needs sustained attendance, and a subdued debut would place greater pressure on subsequent weekends and overseas markets.
An opening forecast cannot establish a film’s eventual profit or loss. It can, however, reveal how much work remains for the campaign.
Reviews have complicated the pitch
The critical response has been sharply divided. People reported reactions ranging from admiration for the film’s audacity and Cruise’s commitment to criticism of its scale, coherence and tone.
For potential ticket buyers, that creates an uncertain proposition. Cruise’s presence attracts attention, but attention does not automatically translate into enthusiasm for an unfamiliar kind of film.
The promotional campaign has leaned into that disagreement. The Guardian described advertising that places harsh reactions alongside praise, using the controversy itself to generate interest. Whether that approach encourages curiosity or deepens hesitation remains an open question.
Why ‘Verity’ makes the weekend more intriguing
The Hollywood Reporter expects Digger to open substantially behind Verity, the Amazon MGM Studios adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel. hollywoodreporter.com
Starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, Verity is also scheduled to open on October 2. Its psychological-thriller premise centres on a writer who discovers a disturbing manuscript while completing another author’s book series.
From a marketing perspective, an established novel and a recognisable thriller setup could offer a more immediate hook. Digger, by comparison, asks audiences to take a greater leap into unfamiliar territory.
The audience verdict is still ahead
Cruise has clearly committed to that leap. At the London premiere, Reuters reported that his transformation involved prosthetics and a padded bodysuit, alongside a demanding performance.
The commercial outcome remains unresolved. Strong audience recommendations could give Digger momentum beyond its initial forecasts. A weak response would make its financial challenge harder.
For now, the film’s biggest suspense lies beyond the screen: whether curiosity about Cruise’s unusual gamble becomes an opening-weekend ticket purchase.
How ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Returned to Cinemas and Reclaimed Box Office Glory
Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Faces a Tough Opening: Could ‘Verity’ Take the Lead?
‘Verity’ Could Outopen ‘Digger’: Why Tom Cruise Faces a Tough Contest
‘Endgame’ Returns to No. 1 ‘Avatar’ Loses Its Box Office Throne
Mark Zuckerberg Faces a New Hollywood Reckoning Why Aaron Sorkin’s Film Hits Closer to Home
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