Mr Planet Hollywood . . . the sequel?
FIRST he launched the glitzy chain that rocketed in value by more than $1BILLION in three hours THEN the pioneer of celebrity branding admits he ‘fell behind the game’ and business crashed NOW Robert Earl is back – with a new TV streaming idea. Could he
NO COMPANY epitomised the glitzy heydays of the 1990s more than Planet Hollywood. The restaurant chain was backed by Hollywood A-listers including Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger and its history had even more twists and turns than the plots of their films.
Now its multi-millionaire founder, British entrepreneur Robert Earl, is working on a sequel. In keeping with the 21st Century, his latest plan is an internet venture – a video service to rival YouTube.
With an eye on the success of Airbnb and Uber, he says: ‘I am jealous of these young entrepreneurs who have worked out how to get a taxi from A to B or borrow someone’s house to rent it out. So I’m going into tech and have developed a platform called Collide. It is a big play and I have spent millions on it.’
Existing video streaming services like YouTube allow users to earn money from a cut in advertising sales. Earl’s plan is to allow video makers to directly charge viewers.
He says: ‘I’m giving you your own cable channel and I am going to show everything – except for porn and IS. So everyone in the UK can be on it. I was on the phone the other day with Russell Brand about it, because this can be used by anyone for any application.’
The business is just one project Earl is working on. He also aims to buy a British football club – he once owned a sizeable stake in Everton; is expanding his hotels business; and has plans for more restaurant launches in the UK.
But the internet is uncharted territory for 66-year-old Earl, originally from Hendon, North-West London. We meet in his adopted home town, Orlando, Florida. He lives in one of the city’s most exclusive districts and near neighbours have included Wesley Snipes and Tiger Woods.
But the venue for our interview is the Orlando Planet Hollywood – in a huge spherical structure recently redesigned at a cost of £23million to look like an observatory.
It first opened in 1994. ‘In some years it was the highest-grossing restaurant in the world,’ boasts Earl. ‘One year, we were taking $1million (£780,000) a week.’
The curtain rose on the first outlet in the chain in 1991. The New York restaurant was adorned with movie memorabilia, including Stallone’s boxing gloves from Rocky and Schwarzenegger’s motorcycle from The Terminator.
The openings were like movie premieres. An estimated $2million was spent on the launch of the London eaterie, near Piccadilly Circus, with stars flown in on Concorde.
In 1996, the group floated on America’s Nasdaq stock exchange. Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore all appeared for the opening of trading. Then, one of the most frenzied buying sprees in the market’s history propelled the company’s value from $1.9billion to well over $3billion in just three hours.
But as the restaurants’ novelty wore off, repeat business nosedived. Customer numbers fell and a rapid expansion sent the firm into debt and bankruptcy in 1999.
The chain re-emerged only to collapse again in 2001. But the brand survived and is now wholly owned by Earl. There are fewer sites, but he still owns the original New York restaurant. There is also still a London outlet, though in 2009 it moved to smaller premises nearby.
‘The lease expired. It was a massive rent hike and I was worried about that,’ explains Earl, whose wealth is estimated at £200 million.
Huge wealth, Hollywood friends and a Florida mansion. It is a long way from Hendon, where he grew up. His mother ran a dress shop while his father was a tenor. After studying at catering college, Earl met an entrepreneur named Joe Lewis, now a Bahamas-based billionaire. They took a site near the Tower of London and turned it into a medieval-themed banqueting hall – called the Beefeater.
‘I took that company public in the 1980s and the City loved it because, unlike any other restaurant in the world, 50 per cent of my business was booked a year in advance.’
It is now known as the Medieval Banquet and controlled by businesswoman Miri Davis. Earl says: ‘I’d like to buy it back and have tried. I have always used entertainment, in one form or another, to be additive to my brand. That hasn’t dated. People still love that.’
Earl moved from London to Orlando in 1983 and set up President Entertainment, which specialised in themed restaurants and was sold in 1998 to the owners of the Hard Rock Café chain. By then it was worth more than $100million.
The new owners then asked him to run Hard Rock and he added 15 outlets in five years and sent profitability soaring.
Film producer Keith Barish approached Earl about collaborating on a Hollywood-themed restaurant. ‘I said I would do something, but only if it was completely different from Hard Rock and if he could deliver movie stars,’ says Earl. ‘Now the ownership is 100 per cent me and my family. I don’t have the celebrities as associates any more.’
Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger may no longer be on the share register, but they are still close associates.
In recent years, Earl has co-produced The Expendables series of action movies starring Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Hollywood newspapers recently reported that Stallone would not appear in the next film. Earl says this is flatly untrue. ‘Do you think Sly is going off to make Othello or the Tempest instead?’ he jokes.
In London, Earl is now ‘aggressively’ looking for a site to open a new restaurant based on his American Earl of Sandwich franchise. An early attempt failed to take off, as the site was in the City. This time he is looking for a top spot.
‘I’m looking for a prime location, Covent Garden, St Martin’s Lane, Regent Street. I need volume. Heathrow, railway stations. I like the franchise model and that is the model I will follow in England, but you have to have a flagship first to give everyone confidence.’
And Planet Hollywood is expanding again. This time not just as restaurants, but as hotels with sites in India and Malaysia with others planned in Mexico and the Caribbean. With hindsight, Earl thinks he should have turned to hotels earlier and feels he has not kept pace with the digital revolution.
‘I am providing the brand, the lifestyle, the imagery, the marketing. Developers are saying, “Where can I get a brand that can enhance my chance of success?” That’s happening everywhere. It’s why celebrities are used to promote every product and why you pay for them to post and Tweet. It’s the new world,’ he says.
Thinking back to the early days of Planet Hollywood he reflects: ‘I was ahead of the game at the time. I can’t say I am now, I’m behind.’
He quickly adds: ‘But I’m going to get there.’
You will have your own cable channel and we will show everything – except for porn and IS
I will follow the franchise model for my new restaurants, but you have to have a flagship first