Hollywood’s new hot business strategy: Celebrity BFFs
Taylor Swift and Blake Lively are friends laughing to the bank, following right behind besties Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
“It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.” This saying has been around Tinsel Town for as long as the Hollywood sign has loomed over Los Angeles.
That’s still true for those seeking stardom, but recently, it has also been true for celebrities setting out on business ventures, particularly beyond the screen.
Celebrity friendships have historically been good for attention-grabbing headlines for all involved — a way to heighten a profile while projecting a “stars, they’re just like us” groundedness. In the last few years, however, celeb friends have gone next level: becoming business partners.
From owning sports teams to hosting podcasts and starting a liquor brand, Hollywood friends are finding that two stars (or more) are better than one — and are cashing in.
“It can be a good strategy,” Olav Sorenson, the Joseph Jacobs Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, told B-17.
“Most celebs have somewhat different fan bases. So, a team-up or a shout-out can expand their reach,” Sorenson continued. “But every new venture also comes with risk; maybe the product flops. So, the other upside of a team-up is that it allows the celebrity to split the risk.”
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny became the blueprint for celebrity friend success
Wrexham co-owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds celebrate with the trophy following promotion to the EFL following the Vanarama National League match at The Racecourse Ground, Wrexham on Saturday April 22, 2023.
One of the most successful celebrity team-ups in recent years was Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny’s purchase of the Wrexham AFC soccer team in 2020, one of the oldest clubs in Wales.
“In reality, it’s still completely insane,” Reynolds told B-17 back in June when reflecting on buying Wrexham with one of his closest friends, McElhenny.
Still, it’s an insane move that has brought both men heightened notoriety and huge payoffs since buying the team for $2.5 million. The club suddenly has global visibility as it rises up the ranks of the English football league and has netted income-generating partnerships with Gatorade, TikTok, United Airlines, Vista Print, and computer giant HP. Reynolds and McElhenny also created the popular FX docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham,” which has won multiple Emmys.
Though the club’s popularity is obvious, Reynolds and McElhenny haven’t seen a financial reward — yet. In March, it was revealed that the team’s losses totaled $6.4 million and that the team owes its star owners over $11 million.
Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett also know the power of friendship and have made it a sellable commodity thanks to their podcast “SmartLess.” After growing its popularity for four years, SiriusXM acquired the podcast from Amazon for $100 million.
And “Breaking Bad” stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have crafted an award-winning mezcal brand, Dos Hombres, while also bettering the lives of those back in Mexico who make the juice. The two didn’t just want to be the face of a brand; instead, they trekked through the jungles of Mexico in 2016 to ensure they were delivering an authentic and differentiated product.
Dos Hombres merchandise sales also go to the San Luis del Rio village, which makes the mezcal. So far, that revenue has provided a water-filtration system, a paved road, and a medical facility that’s still under construction.
“We didn’t have to do this,” Cranston told B-17 late last year. “The only reason to do it is if we were both passionate about it. And that’s what we found.”
Whether it be a passion project, doing something seemingly nuts with a friend by their side, or hitting the jackpot and cashing in on the venture, celebrity friend team-ups are working at the moment.
But there is an ultimate friend to have in this business: Taylor Swift.
The “Taylor Bump” is real
Taylor Swift attends the 2023 Grammys.
Swift proved with her Eras Tour that she gives the economy a big boost, as the tour in 2023 generated $4.6 billion in US consumer spending. But recently, she’s also given a bump to friends’ projects.
For her friend Blake Lively’s recent movie, “It Ends With Us,” which opened in early August, Swift allowed her song “My Tears Ricochet” to be used in the trailer and the movie. According to Sony, which released the movie, the trailer generated 128.1 million views in its first 24 hours, becoming the biggest female-centered trailer in years.
The movie went on to earn over $240 million worldwide, the biggest earner ever for Lively (though the controversies surrounding Lively and the movie also helped its performance).
Swift wasn’t done giving love to her Hollywood friends.
Just this past week, Swift praised her friend Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut, “Blink Twice,” on her Instagram story, calling the film “incredible.”
“Zoë Kravitz conceptualized this, wrote it, obsessed over every detail, and directed it with such a clear and bold vision,” Swift wrote to her 283 million followers.
The movie, which also stars Channing Tatum as a shady billionaire, only earned $7.3 million on its opening weekend on a $20 million budget. Still, it beat out fellow new release “The Crow,” which only took in $4.6 million on a $50 million budget. So, yeah, Kravitz owes Swift a drink.
Not all team-ups work
Steven Spileberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg owned the restaurant failure, Dive!.
Sometimes, even star power can’t help a venture succeed.
Jill Avery, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, told B-17 that a failed partnership is often due to “negative buzz, particularly if consumers can’t make sense of the collaboration.”
One of the most memorable celebrity team-up failures was the mid-1990s LA restaurant called Dive!, owned by Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Built to look like diners were inside a neon yellow submarine, every 45 minutes, sirens would blare, and the windows would black out to make it seem like the restaurant was about to submerge. The gimmick got old quickly with Dive! lasting only five years before closing its doors in 1999.
More recently, couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shephard’s baby products company Hello Bello, founded in 2019, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, citing high shipping and production costs for its failure. (Hildred Capital bought the company out of bankruptcy months later.)
Despite those risks and a few flops from celebrity team-ups, Hollywood friends are definitely finding it more beneficial to partner on a business than go it alone.
