before, however. That balmy time is long gone when the late Jack Warner could be sold a manuscript in a Palm Springs sauna. Warner was notorious for buying fast, and for flat fees -sometimes prudently ("Mildred Pierce") and sometimes not ("Youngblood Hawke"). Today's negotiations are not so simple: Authors' contracts often exceed 40 pages and include such terms as rolling breakeven and cross-collateralization. The phraseology makes today's negotiations seem wholly impersonal. Is the traditional "smallness" of publishing -the cultivated one-on-one relationships -an anachronism? "Quite the contrary," claims Evarts Ziegler, long the acknowledged dean of L.A. literary agents. "Today's dealing is more straightforward. And there are more gentlemen involved." There's also more money. Much more. Last fall, over a Polo Lounge lunch, attor- -agent George Diskant instigated the largest -ever sale for a piece of new fiction. Author Paul Erdman ("Crash of '79") is guaranteed $1.2 million for a novel to be called "Atlantic City." The buyers are Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books. The film ver- sion also was concocted at the lunch: It will be a joint venture including Erdman, director Sydney Pollack and producer George Englund. Its genesis was somewhat simple, reminiscent almost of the Warner era. (Details on Erdman and his deal next week in Calendar.) Englund, well- versed in the workings of Las Vegas, wanted to do a picture about : a gaming town. Erdman, adept at inventing financially themed fiction, was a natural choice, and so was agent Diskant, whose powers of attorney are not taken lightly in Hollywood's complicated deal making today. This particular barter is a breakthrough Please Turn to Page 32
