Are Rick Nicita and Paula Wagner, the longtime Hollywood power couple, going into business together?
Nicita, the former CAA partner, left Morgan Creek in January where he was co-chairman, while Wagner left behind her longtime producing partnership with Tom Cruise when MGM went through bankruptcy in 2008.
Now it appears that the couple will be starting a company to produce Broadway shows, finance and produce movies as well as manage talent.
Read also: Morgan Creek Co-Chair Rick Nicita Exits After 3 Years
A knowledgeable insider also tells TheWrap that Nicita and Wagner are close to securing financing for this new company, even as Nicita has begun managing former CAA clients Al Pacino and writer-director Garry Marshall. Nicita was a partner at CAA and a powerhouse agent for close to 30 years.
Meanwhile, Wagner has been busy working on Broadway. She is producing “The Heiress,” starring Jessica Chastain and David Straitharn, a revival of the 1947 adaptation by Ruth and Augustus Goetz of the Henry James novel, “Washington Square.”
It is Wagner’s first producing gig on Broadway, where many prominent Hollywood producers have turned in recent years.
Also read: Can Struggling Hollywood Ride Broadway's Coattails?
Reached by phone, Nicita declined to comment except to say that he was not starting a management company.
But he did not deny that something more ambitious was on its way.
The executives have been married for 27 years, but have not worked together since Wagner got her start at CAA.
Nicita left CAA in 2008, where he was a managing partner.
Wagner, meanwhile, was partnered with Cruise for 13 years in Cruise/Wagner Productions, and then took over the United Artists label at MGM with the A-list actor from 2006 to 2008.