Swimming with Sharks (also known as The Boss and Buddy Factor) is a 1994 American satire film written and directed by George Huang and starring Kevin Spacey, Frank Whaley and Michelle Forbes.

Buddy Ackerman (Spacey), an influential movie mogul, hires Guy (Whaley), a naïve young writer, as his assistant.

Buddy turns out to be the boss from hell; he treats Guy like a slave, subjects him to sadistic (and public) verbal abuse, and has him bending over backward to do meaningless errands that go beyond just his work life.

He tells Guy that his wife had been shot, raped, and murdered on Christmas Eve 12 years prior, and reveals that he, too, was once a bullied assistant to powerful, tyrannical men and spent a decade putting up with such abuse to become successful himself.

[4] Huang's resultant script, "Reel Life", was picked up by Cineville executive Frank Evers, who brought in financing from independent investors, and significant production support from Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Although writer George Huang himself worked as an assistant for Barry Josephson, who was the Senior Vice President of Development at Sony Pictures at the time, some have suggested that Buddy's character was inspired by real life movie mogul Scott Rudin, while others suggest he is based on producer Joel Silver with Guy being based on Alan Schechter, Silver's assistant in the early 1990s.

The site's consensus states: "Swimming With Sharks is a smart, merciless Hollywood satire that's darkly hilarious and observant, thanks to Kevin Spacey's performance as ruthless studio mogul Buddy Ackerman.

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "The producer as megalomaniacal cutthroat — the devil with a cellular phone — is, by now, a standard figure of Hollywood satire.

[6][10][9] Variety wrote the film’s "escalating face-off is climaxed by an unexpected arrival, and [its] surprise ending truly does The Player one better in its evaluation of how self-centered, amoral and insular Hollywood can be.

"[11] Janet Maslin of The New York Times commented, "Mr. Whaley slyly captures the yes-man who happily eases into his boss's arrogant habits as the story goes on.

[6] Though he found the ending to be implausible, he said "The best parts of 'Swimming With Sharks' are in the details -- in how Guy develops telephone and lying skills, or how Buddy manipulates the phones.

It was near guaranteed you were gonna get screamed at, and it was a badge of honor to be able to take it..."[12] Said Huang in a 2018 interview, "It does sort of frighten me that people see the film as a primer.

The play starred Christian Slater as Buddy, Matt Smith as Guy, Arthur Darvill as Rex and Helen Baxendale as Dawn.