Maximillian Steinitz Goldstein

Max likes to refer to himself as “The Rainmaker”, in reference to his dealmaking skills, but this has not caught on. A better known nickname is Maximum Overdick, which stems from an anonymous comment quoted in the papers during the aftermath of his restructuring of Capella. He abhors that nickname.

67

Male

Heterosexual

Executive Producer

He's an older man, and he has not aged gracefully. His hair is grey and thinning, his jowels are sagging, and ages spots can be seen on his face. Though he wears his hair in a comb-over to conceal his baldness, he still has the same brown eyes and large nose he was born with. He is 5’ 7”, a little shorter than average. He has noticeable gut and pale skin as a result of his largely sedentary lifestyle. He makes an effort to dress nicely even on casual occasions.

Max likes making friends, he always tries to build business relationships into actual friendship. He's outgoing, and loves to talk about whatever subject is on his mind at that very moment. He is a very patient man, and hates feeling like he is bossing people around, but holds onto his own views quite stubbornly. Max trusts people by default, and generally keeps a cheery outlook on life. He tries to be open to feedback and criticism, but gets offended when people flat-out ignore his instructions. When he does have to put his foot down and give orders, he tries to be gentle, but always puts business over friendship.
Max has a very high opinion of himself. He doesn’t necessarily look down on others, but it he does not like it when people point out his flaws. He is rather insecure and is not good at ignoring things said about himself. He particularly dislike comparisons to people he knows, especially his father or his friends at CRC. Max harbors lingering self doubt, but does not admit this fact.

Being laughed at, behind his back and to his face

Max came from a family of bankers in New York City. His father was highly regarded in the community, not only for his wealth but his generosity. As a young man, Max lived quite comfortably, and only worked hard when his parents insisted. As an adult he would follow the expected path of earning a business degree at Dartmouth, where his success was more due to legacy and quality tutors than his own merit.
He was quite well regarded by fraternity brothers at Dartmouth, but his grades made potential employers wary. He found a job at one of the less prestigious investment banks, and performed unexceptionally; he would spend almost a decade there. Max left when some of his classmates offered him a position as one of the first hires at their newly founded private equity firm, Cohen & Robinson Capital.
CRC was an immediate success and grew into one of the best known corporate raiders of the era. Max worked on several successful deals, but never originated one on his own, always taking direction from the founding partners. As the eighties drew to a close, the collapse of the junk bond market and increasing price of leveraged buyouts hurt the firm’s growth, spurring them to look harder for opportunities. Max came to them with the idea of buying up Capella Pictures, a studio dating back to the golden age of Hollywood which had posted a large profit in recent years.

Almost immediately after it was completed, the buyout looked like a mistake. The studio’s profits didn’t last as a string of artistic films tanked at the box office. The partners were furious and sought to blame Max for the failure, so they placed him in charge of the studio to ensure that he would shoulder all of the blame. Max was isolated from the rest of the company and in danger of being fired, his only option was to make big changes at Capella.

He read obsessively about what the other, more successful studios had done to bolster their profits. Max embarked on an ambitious restructuring plan, which he started by leveraging the studio’s back catalog and pull with theater chains. Home media releases and theater distribution deals brought in new cash flows to buy some time. After that, he moved on to change the film production side of the studio with a new emphasis on tax credits and financing deals to reduce risk. Most controversially, he took control of the studio’s slate of upcoming movies and cancelled a score of auteur projects while pushing a new emphasis on formulaic movies and franchises.

Max’s program succeeded in revitalizing the studio. He even wrote a minorly successful book about his strategy called The Bottom Line, which he makes a point of giving copies to everyone he does business with. Although he is happy with his reputation and the current state of Capella, he does not leave things entirely up to those below him on the corporate ladder. He still intervenes heavily in deciding what films Capella will and won’t distribute as he believes he has a good sense of what audiences enjoy.

Max was very excited to hear about Jake’s project because he believes it has a marketable storyline and thinks that Jake’s name could generate some free publicity. Capella has agreed to be responsible for distributing it to theaters, but was not comfortable with the budget Jake asked for. They have provided part of the funding, but not all of it.

March 19th ,1948

@MaxSGoldstein