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I think Fox was paying him about a million bucks a year, and he had created the Ice Age franchise for them, which was billions of dollars of value. I said, “Here’s how we’re going to negotiate with Fox. On a separate track, we’re going to create a company that you’re going to run. We’re going to get off-balance-sheet financing and we’re going to align you with another global distributor.” At the time we had at least three studios that would be great strategic fits. But he didn’t want to be an employee, he wanted real ownership. So we created parallel paths. On one track was the Fox negotiation, which I told him would take a year, and they would give him a 15 percent increase. They would grind it out and play hardball. I told him, “At the end of the day, they’re not going to pay you anywhere near what you’re worth. But on this other track, we’ll create this opportunity to change your life, for you to have something of your own.” I remember having a meeting with Mark Shmuger and David Linde, who were literally in the first day of their new jobs as co-chairmen of Universal Studios, and Bryan, Richard, Kevin, and I met with them in their first official meeting and I pitched them the idea of being in business with Chris, and they said, “Yes. We want you to do it.” It took probably well over a year, but ultimately we created Illumination. Universal came in and financed the company 100 percent. They wanted to clean up their balance sheet because they were about to sell to Comcast, so we got paid an investment banking fee for $ 4 or $ 5 million, and then on top of that we’ve commissioned every movie that Chris has done. Chris got a very, very, rich deal, probably the best producing deal there is. The truth is, on Minions he’ll probably make $ 80–$ 90 million. To date he’s probably made hundreds of millions. And he’s got Despicable Me 3, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
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James Andrew Miller (Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency)