March 2017 Agency Moves Find Rising Stars Nick Jonas, Glen Powell, Maika Monroe On the Move

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The Highlight Reel

• WME and ICM Partners have new leading men to tout, with Nick Jonas moving to the former and Glen Powell following his agent Joey Stanton to the latter. Both were previously repped by CAA, which has to be smarting after losing two rising stars, who are both coups for their new agencies. Powell is the Scream Queens star turned Everybody Wants Some!! scene-stealer who just played John Glenn in Hidden Figures and is currently filming Guernsey with Lily James. He’s a charming, likable lead, which explains why Netflix wants to stay in business with him after Sand Castle on the rom-com Set It Up, which will pair him with his EWS co-star Zoey Deutch. Powell is also a dual threat, as he’s writing and producing the Captain Planet movie. Meanwhile, Jonas is an award-winning musician who turned heads with his performance in last year’s underrated indie drama Goat. Though his MMA series Kingdom is ending after this season, he has the Jumanji reboot coming out this Christmas and if that film works, the sky’s the limit for his budding acting career.
• Powell and Jonas aren’t the only up-and-comers on the move, as Maika Monroe has surfed over to Management 360 from Luber Roklin, which didn’t necessarily capitalize on her back-to-back turns in acclaimed genre films The Guest and It Follows in the right way, seeing as Independence Day: Resurgence and The 5th Wave were skewered by critics — even though they did raise her profile. She has been earning strong reviews for the serial killer indie The Scent of Rain & Lightning and could earn further acclaim with The Tribes of Palos Verdes and Peter Landesman’s Felt on the horizon. And speaking of up-and-coming actresses, keep an eye on The Missing star Abigail Hardingham, who signed with ICM this week. She strikes me as one to watch.
• It was a good day for WME when it signed Ice Cube, who had been without an agent since last fall. The Friday star and Straight Outta Compton producer has a bunch of projects percolating, including an Oliver Twist musical at Disney and the Scrooge story Humbug at Universal, where he’s also working on Ride Along 3 and the pot comedy Rocky Mountain High.
• CAA and WME also signed some exciting directors this month, with WME reeling in Dean Israelite fresh off the surprise success of Power Rangers ($40M+ opening), and Josh Trank finding a much-needed new home at CAA, which already put one of its biggest stars, Tom Hardy, in Trank’s Al Capone movie Fonzo. Trank’s reputation took a hit with Fantastic Four, but he’s still one of Hollywood’s most talented young directors, and I suspect we’ll be hearing more from him as he works hard to mount a comeback.
• After winning an Emmy for her stunning turn as Marcia Clark on The People vs. O.J. Simpson, Sarah Paulson has signed with CAA. Her feature career is poised for a major bump between Ocean’s Eight next year and Amazon’s chilling serial killer tale Lost Girls, which could turn out to be an incredible movie. Plus, she’ll always have Ryan Murphy’s signature American Horror Story and American Crime Story franchises to fall back on. Talk about good job security…
• And finally, UTA signed Sally Field, who deserves more work these days. The two-time Oscar winner was fantastic in Hello, My Name Is Doris (not to mention Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln) and I’d like to see more indie filmmakers mine her talents. Hopefully her new team at UTA will introduce her to the agency’s up-and-coming directors.

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 Jeff Sneider | Editor in Chief