Francis Ford Coppola
After 10 years of spectacular flops and mild
successes, The Godfather Part III is his chance to write a new
chapter to his best work, and his career. If it stinks, even his most
ardent fans may not forgive him.
Vin Di Bona
He created two of 1990's biggest TV hits, America's Funniest Home Videos and America's Funniest People. The problem: They
don't get no respect. Is he prime-time's shrewdest entrepreneur, or
just the new Allen Funt?
Peter Guber and Jon Peters
It cost Sony three-quarters of a
billion dollars to lure these producers-turned-studio chiefs to
Columbia; their 1991 releases (ready for Return to the Blue Lagoon?)
should begin to determine whether Sony got its money's worth.
Warren Littlefield
After years as Brandon Tartikoff's No. 2 man
at NBC, Littlefield was finally named programming chief this summer.
Whether he has his mentor's deft touch will become clearer next year,
as will his degree of autonomy, since Tartikoff is still very much a
presence at NBC.
George Lucas
As the force behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, he can do whatever he wants, so why doesn't he get back to work? An all-black production about WWII's Tuskegee Airmen, Red
Tails, may return him to the spotlight next year.
Eddie Murphy
He commands an eight-figure salary for movies and
has a TV production deal, but Another 48 HRS. was a disappointment,
and a sequel to Harlem Nights isn't exactly in high demand.
Robert Pittman
He's launched one spectacularly good idea (MTV)
and one spectacularly bad idea (The Morton Downey Jr. Show). Now, as
president of Time Warner Enterprises, he'll soon offer gavel-to-gavel
trial coverage on the American Lawyer cable network. The jury's still
out.
Joe Roth
Until 1989, the director-producer ran the production
house Morgan Creek (Young Guns, Major League). Now, as head of 20th
Century Fox films, he'll approve up to 25 movies a year. The latest,
Steven Seagal's Marked for Death, opened strongly.
Richard Snyder
Called ''the Gaddafi of publishing'' for his
hard-ball tactics (he commandeers an elevator, and rides alone), the
Simon & Schuster CEO is stumbling through the expansion of America's
largest publishing house — and facing interference from parent company
Paramount.
Sylvester Stallone
He made $63 million in the past two years, but
at 44, the box-office champ is getting too old to strap on machine
guns or boxing gloves. Rocky V: The Final Bell is just weeks
away — will it mark a graceful exit from the ring and into more
human-scaled roles?
Lew Wasserman
The MCA chairman is no longer Hollywood's
unofficial behind- the-scenes power broker. But far from surrendering
his post at the entertainment conglomerate, he's trying to bring off
the deal of his lifetime: the sale of MCA to Matsushita Electric
Industrial Company for an estimated $7 billion.
