Ryan Murphy’s longtime attorney Craig Emanuel is in talks to move in – The Hollywood Reporter
Hollywood powerhouse lawyer Craig Emanuel is in talks to leave Paul Hastings and move in-house to work for longtime client Ryan Murphy. The Hollywood Reporter have learned.
Emanuel, who was a mainstay THRis the annual spotlight of the entertainment industry’s top lawyers and has also worked with the likes of Tom Hanks, Daniel Day Lewis, Julie Delpy, Robert Rodriguez, Luke Davies and Tony Gilroy, as well as companies such as MSG Entertainment (Madison Square Garden) and Animal Logic.
News of the decision to advise Murphy full-time spread in late August, but it is unclear whether the deal has been fully completed. This comes amid a busy summer for the American horror story showrunner, which saw him move his overall contract from Netflix to Disney and launch a $500,000 strike support fund, as well as a dispute with a former Writers Guild of America strike captain over a now-deleted tweet that claimed he had the Crew to cross encourages the pickets. (Murphy’s spokesperson called the tweet “absolute nonsense” and “categorically false.”)
In an interview for his 2018 Power Lawyers profile, Emanuel described helping Murphy make the jump from 20th Century Fox to Netflix in a then-unprecedented $300 million deal as monumental. “Over the course of your career you get one, maybe two deals if you’re lucky, that change the face of your work,” he said, “and there’s no doubt that this was that deal.” Emanuel did it too THRwas included in this year’s list of top dealmakers in connection with his work on the mega pact. With landscape-changing work under her belt, as well as deals for Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and series currently in progress American horror story And feud franchise, it’s not entirely surprising that the lawyer would choose to delve deeper into his work for the prolific creator and his Ryan Murphy Productions.
The Melbourne, Australia native joined Paul Hastings in 2018 when a group of entertainment partners left Loeb & Loeb. His philanthropic activities include serving on the boards of two civil rights nonprofits, the Faith and Politics Institute and the March on Washington Film Festival, as well as work with the Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance and the Creative Community for Peace.
Representatives for the company and Murphy have not yet commented on the transition.
