“‘I’m coming to Paros.’ Hearing those words was much scarier than you’d think,” Fox Filmed Entertainment co-chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos reports for The Hollywood Reporter.
“During the spring and summer of 2006, Steve Jobs was negotiating with Fox and other studios to expand iTunes from selling digital music and TV shows to selling feature films,” Gianopulos reports. “I had known Steve for several years, and as usual, he had very strong views — in this instance, about how movies on iTunes should be priced, marketed and presented to his growing base of devoted followers.”
“Unfortunately, many of those views were inconsistent with existing media, and as was often the case, he thought the studio guys were Luddites (if not idiots),” Gianopulos reports. “I was one of them.”
“We spent many hours on the phone and in person hashing out ways to reconcile the new offering with our concerns about it,” Gianopulos reports. “We were very eager to make it work — but nowhere near as eager as Steve, who wanted to corral all the studios and make one of his bold and exciting announcements, which he’d scheduled for September. We wanted to change things; he wanted to change them now.”
“We argued and debated back and forth into the summer, and as August arrived, we remained a fair distance apart. So, as a respite from Relentless Steve, I sneaked off to my annual retreat on the tiny island of Antiparos, near Paros in Greece,” Gianopulos reports. “I thought I was safe. But not from Steve.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.