It’s not just who you know but how well you know them: The impact of trust and relational networks in movie deal-making
John Yudelson

Abstract
Deal-making requires multiple parties that can trust each other to uphold all aspects of the deal. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in Hollywood movie deals which can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. However, not just anyone can call up a producer or studio executive with a movie idea. They must be “a player” in the network. This paper investigates how trust and networks impact how movie deals are made. It asks the question who is most central in the movie deal-making network, and how do the strength of the relationships in Hollywood impact the deal-making process? Using Centering Resonance Analysis to quantify the answers from interviews with movie deal participants, the answer of who is most central in this network - the studio executives, actors, directors, or the independent producers – is resolved.

Full Text: PDF