LET'S NOT MAKE A DEAL

Justhours after Seagram formally completed its $5.7 billion purchase of MCA Inc., which owns Universal Pictures, the firm's long-rumored effort to recruit top Hollywood talent broker Michael Ovitz to head the studio foundered in talks today, a source close to the talks told the Associated Press. The source said the prospective deal, which promised to reshape the Hollywood landscape, fell apart over financial issues. Ovitz, whose Creative Artists Agency represents headliners such as Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, reportedly held out for a lucrative compensation package and asked that Seagram buy out his 55 percent stake in CAA for $250 million. Seagram bought the company from Japanese industrial giant Matsushita. Today's surprise impasse leaves no obvious alternative candidates for Seagram, which must replace legendary MCA chairman Lew Wasserman before he retires in December.