Business

Peter Chernin and Ari Emanuel have falling out over money and turf

(
)

This Tinseltown tussle would be a hit on the big screen.

Two of Hollywood’s biggest power players — producer Peter Chernin and super-agent Ari Emanuel — have fallen out after a battle over money and turf.

The heavy hitters are at odds, executives close to them say, because just two weeks after Chernin announced a deal to tie up with Jonathan Nelson’s Providence Equity, Emanuel’s William Morris Endeavor agency announced its own deal with an investor group.

WME said it was selling a 31 percent stake to private-equity player Silver Lake Capital.

The move by WME, which was repping Chernin Entertainment — whose recent producer credits include “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “New Girl” — put Emanuel in direct competition with the 61-year-old producer.

Both are now looking to invest in the same companies and projects.

“They have found themselves in the same competitive set,” said one source, commenting on the nature of the rift. “They were sometimes meeting the same people.”

Chernin Entertainment has stakes in Pandora, social-media network Tumblr and Flipboard.

WME owns a piece of social-gaming company Grab.com, for which it led a Series A funding round.

Emanuel — immortalized in HBO’s “Entourage” as the always-on-edge talent agent Ari Gold — is said to be piqued that Chernin raised $200 million from Providence Equity Group to make global investments in media and tech space.

“Peter raised money on his own,” a Hollywood source told The Post.

“He didn’t need Ari or seek his counsel. The agents want to control everything. People are saying that Ari is being vitriolic about it.”

Earlier this month, Chernin Entertainment confirmed it would no longer use WME to rep its TV unit. Part of WME’s job as a talent agency is to package TV projects and find the best directors and writers and sell them into networks.

Another source said Chernin is a close friend of Rick Rosen, head of WME’s TV group, making the split all the more unusual.

A spokeswoman for The Chernin Group declined to comment on the rift or on the reason for the exit, but confirmed that Chernin’s TV production company was no longer repped by WME.

“We wish them well,” she said.

Chernin Entertainment is still evaluating what to do about finding a new talent agency for its TV unit, a source close to the company said, but added that it wasn’t close to a decision.

Chernin, a former president and chief operating officer of News Corp., already has a very rich deal.

When he exited News Corp., he negotiated a package that guaranteed that Fox network would air his shows and Twentieth Century Fox would make two of Chernin’s movies a year.

News Corp. also owns The Post.

The rift also puts investment bank the Raine Group in a tough spot. Raine, which invests in the media space, was co-founded by WME, but also counts Chernin as a member of its advisory board.

WME couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.