Craig Emanuel and Ryan Murphy
Tibrina Hobson/WireImage; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Hollywood Power attorney Craig Emanuel is in talks to leave Paul Hastings and move in-house to work for his longtime client Ryan Murphy, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Emanuel, who was a pillar of THRhighlighted each year by the entertainment industry’s top lawyers, 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 like as MSG Entertainment (Madison Square Garden) and Animal Logic.
News of Murphy’s decision to advise full-time began to spread in late August, but it’s unclear whether the deal is fully finalized. This comes in the middle of 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 have an altercation with a former Writers Guild of America strike captain over ‘a since-deleted tweet alleging he encouraged the crew to cross the picket line. (Murphy’s spokesperson called the tweet “absolute nonsense” and “categorically false.”)
In an interview for his 2018 Power Lawyers profile, Emanuel described helping Murphy move from 20th Century Fox to Netflix in a then-unprecedented $300 million deal as monumental. “In your career you get one, maybe two contracts if you’re lucky, that change the face of what you’ve done,” he said, “and there’s no doubt that it was that contract.” Emanuel also did THRthe list of Top Dealmakers that year in relation to his work on the mega-pact. With landscape transformation work under its belt, as well as agreements for Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and current series American horror story And Quarrel franchises, it’s not entirely surprising that the lawyer would choose to focus on his work for the prolific creator and his Ryan Murphy Productions.
The lawyer, originally from Melbourne, Australia, joined Paul Hastings in 2018 when a group of entertainment partners left Loeb & Loeb. His philanthropic efforts 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 working with the Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance and the Creative Community for Peace.
Company representatives and Murphy have not yet commented on the transition.
