From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.

There has to be more than just a book. I fear for people who just want to write books 10, 15 years from now, I'm not even sure that will be a career anymore.

Best-selling author Ben Mesrick is hardly a favorite with critics, but what does he care?

His books get made into movies, including 21 and the Social Network.

His newest novel, Seven Wonders, had a deal with Fox before he even started writing it.

Then, longtime independent film producer Ted Hope takes partial credit for Guardians of the Galaxy,

even though he had nothing to do with the movie.

But first on the news banter, a couple of brand new movie companies enter the fray,

and Russia contemplates a boycott of Hollywood films. Stick around. It's the business from KCRW.

I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany, of the Hollywood Reporter.

Hello, Matt.

Hi there.

So, Jeff Robinoff, as you may or may not recall, was for many years a head of the Warner Brothers film studio, really oversaw astounding success recently. Argo, Ben Affleck's movie, Gravity, Alfonso Corron's movie, the great Gatsby, Baz Luhrman's movie.

But nonetheless, ousted from Warner Brothers in the last couple of years.

For a long time, he went searching for financing, and he found it in China.

He's like one of the very few people to go in there and come out with serious money.

Yeah, I mean, this is now emerging as the hot new lifeline for Hollywood executives.

If you lose your big studio job, you just go to China, find some money, and start your own studio.

Except, as you know, not nearly that simple, because these Hollywood executives who go to China almost always think they're going to get a deal and come away with absolutely nothing.

After a great deal of negotiation, China has been a real, you know, thicket where studio executives

who are looking for new gigs get lost.

Robinoff very patiently had worked it and got the Foson Group after a number of false starts.

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