LOS ANGELES â In the prelude to the 2008 Democratic presidential primary season, the split between the Hollywood mogul David Geffen and Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton represented an early and embarrassing sign of trouble for Mrs. Clinton.  Mr. Geffen, previously one of the Clintonsâ most generous benefactors, criticized the former first lady as overly ambitious and called the former president âa reckless guy.â Hollywood divided, quickly and sharply, between Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama, then a senator.  When Mrs. Clinton arrives here on Friday to accept an award at an A-list charity event organized by, among others, the producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, she will find a decidedly more embracing climate.  Conversations with a range of Hollywood figures suggest that there is widespread â if not so starry-eyed â support for Mrs. Clinton should she decide to run for president in 2016, a stark contrast with 2008, and an important early indication of Mrs. Clintonâs standing with some of the biggest donors in the Democratic Party.  âIf she ran, I would support her â no question,â Mr. Geffen said in an interview. âI think sheâs the best candidate currently available for either party.â  Mr. Katzenberg, who joined Mr. Geffen and Steven Spielberg in arranging a $1.3 million fund-raiser for Mr. Obama at Mr. Geffenâs Beverly Hills estate in February 2007, also said he planned to throw his weight behind Mrs. Clinton the next time around.  âIf Secretary Clinton makes the decision to run, I expect sheâll have near-unanimous support here,â Mr. Katzenberg wrote in an email. âHillary represents our best chance to win in 2016, build upon the successes of the Obama administration, and keep the country moving in the right direction.â  The shift reflects enthusiasm about Mrs. Clintonâs prospects for winning the election, but it also highlights the less rose-colored view of Mr. Obama now held by some of his most loyal supporters. âThe Hollywood community really came together in the last election and raised an awful lot of money and supported him,â said Felix Schein, a Los Angeles-based political strategist. âI wouldnât say thatâs gone, but the mood is sour.â  In his first run for president, Mr. Obama offered Hollywood not only a new leading man but an irresistible story line: The idea of electing the first black president electrified the industry. And he was an antiwar candidate in a part of the country where the war in Iraq was highly unpopular. Mrs. Clinton, by contrast, seemed like a sequel, a wooden Washington insider.  Disenchantment with Mr. Obama in Hollywood has grown over the years, over such issues as eavesdropping and the perception that he has been weak in dealing with Republicans in Congress.  There is little suggestion, however, that this is the major factor driving the embrace of Mrs. Clinton; several figures here said they were at this point more frustrated with Republicans in Congress than with Mr. Obama.  Given âhow poisoned the atmosphere is,â said Rob Reiner, the actor and director, âI donât think he could have done any better.â  The Clintons have always had a close, if complicated, relationship with Hollywood. Bill Clinton had an ease with the world of pop culture, fostered by his fun-loving mother, Virginia, who revered Elvis Presley. After a speech at the 1988 Democratic convention that most pundits considered political suicide, Mr. Clinton used an appearance on âThe Tonight Showâ to poke fun at â and ultimately redeem â himself.  In 1992 he played the saxophone on âThe Arsenio Hall Show,â and it was his television producer friends Harry and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason whose video, âThe Man From Hope,â introduced many Americans to the future presidentâs small-town-boy-made-good biography.  Last week, at a charity gala at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel Richard Plepler, the chief executive of HBO, told the story of the time he and the actors Billy Crystal, Sam Waterston and Christopher Reeve dropped in unannounced on Mr. Clinton in the Oval Office as he pored over Supreme Court briefing books.  âI hope HBO will soon come again to the White House and there will be another President Clinton sitting at that desk,â Mr. Plepler said. âBut next time, I promise to knock first.â  Since leaving the State Department, Mrs. Clinton has reconnected with old Hollywood friends like the agent Casey Wasserman, and her schedule has been peppered with Hollywood-related events.
Many powerful donors in the entertainment industry chose Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008, but their calculations are different this time.