Phil Anschutz, a Reclusive Visionary

I met billionaire Phil Anschutz a few years ago, when I attended the European premier of the CS Lewis movie in Belfast. I remember how the waters parted when the slightly built man entered the reception, and I chatted him up about the next seven movies he’d like to make from Lewis’ Narnia series. There is something about a billionaire tycoon that makes people get out of the way.

Anschutz was in the news again recently, this time a portrait in the NY Times that described him as a visionary and publicity shy man. He has cobbled together three national cinema chains to form Regal, a conglomerate with over six thousand screens. Anschutz had the brilliant idea of selling national ads before the movies played. He also has made money by renting out the theaters to business groups looking for a place to hold multimedia meetings and to church groups who want the same. He’s also developing a large tract of land around his Staples Center called LA Live, that will bring a revitalization to downtown LA.

When he was younger Anschutz bought a railroad, then merged it with larger ones. He had another great idea…to put a lot more money into a small sector of the company that placed fiber optic lines on the right of way near the tracks. The company ended up having nearly coast to coast fiber that they owned, and leased out to telcoms looking for bandwidth. He made a ton of money but later they fell on hard times when decompression made all of this bandwidth somewhat redundant.