The Oscar PR Machine

(Cynthia Swartz of 42West)

In the Sunday Business section today, a dozen PR people involved in motion picture PR are mentioned by name, and three of them are quoted in “Your Publicist Should Call My Publicist.”

The article makes two interesting points about the growing armies of PR people–both internally at the studios, and at agencies. First, the huge uptick in numbers of people and lobbying can be traced to the Weinstein brothers and their miraculous seven nominations for Pulp Fiction. Second, internal people have way to much to do to handle film PR and the PR for the business side.

The bigger winner tonight is Old Country For Old Men, produced by Joel & Ethan Cohen and the, shall we say “intense” Scott Rudin. We hear from our Hollywood source that superflack Cynthia Swartz has handled Rudin’s films for ages, and categorized the effort as “a big $$$ chase.”

Swartz is mentioned with her 42West partner Leslee Dart along with rival Pat Kingsley in every article about Hollywood PR, including this one about the Globes in Variety that is strikingly similar to the Times piece. It talks about the hordes of publicist working on over 50 movies chasing “several dozen kudosfests” with more detail about the money and extent of the teams. Apparently one Golden Globe nominated movie had six separate consulting companies last year.

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