A feast to raise money for Ryan Kavanaugh of Relativity at the ADL’s annual entertainment dinner

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The bankruptcy filing of Ryan Kavanaugh‘s firm Relativity on July 30, 2015, caused him to drop out of Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people. He chose to wager on singles and doubles rather than box office home runs in his Moneyball for movies method, which turned out to be riskier than first anticipated. While it has had some successes, such as the critically acclaimed 2010 film “The Fighter,” lately it has been struggling: during a stretch that began at the beginning of 2014 and ended in a Chapter 11 filing, none of his films even came close to reaching a meagre $70 million at the global box office. Other investments made by Ryan Kavanaugh in biotech, real estate, video games, and dog food are insufficient to maintain him in the ten-figure range.

Initial career

Kavanaugh founded a short-lived venture capital business after leaving UCLA in the late 1990s. Producer Jon Peters and the family were introduced via Kavanaugh’s uncle. Kavanaugh and his father used Peters’ Hollywood contacts to help the younger Kavanaugh’s business acquire an estimated $175 million in venture capital.

The ADL’s Entertainment Industry Dinner honouring Ryan Kavanaugh, founder of Relativity Media, did not initially portend fame or money. The attendance was a little bit sparser and the banquet hall was smaller than in previous years. If Kavanaugh’s humanitarian impact would even come close to matching his power at the box office was everything but clear at the start of the evening.