Walt Disney Co. dismantled the 20th Century Fox theatrical marketing arm in terms of executives, as part of a large staff cut following its recent $71 billion acquisition of the Fox Studio.
That big shakeup ended a period of relative calm in the executive suites of Hollywood’s theatrical movie marketing.
Another development is MGM, which is building a theatrical distribution arm, hired Stephen Bruno from Netflix. Bruno worked the limited theatrical releases for Netflix movies like “Roma”; Netflix emphasizes quick streaming after short or parallel limited theatrical releases.
Regarding Disney, it is reportedly looking at axing up to 4,000 Fox jobs given duplication from the merger. The cuts in domestic theatrical distribution go to the top including Fox domestic distribution head Chris Aronson; Pam Levine, worldwide theatrical marketing president; Kevin Campbell, co-president of worldwide theatrical marketing; and Tony Sella, chief content officer, according to a Variety story by Brent Lang and Michael Donnelly.
Some Fox senior executives who were transitioned to Disney earlier in film and TV and will remain. For example, the Fox Searchlight (Oscar best-picture winners “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Shape of Water”) specialty film distribution moves over to Disney and survives; Disney owned specialty distributor Miramax for years, but sold it leaving it without a division for moderately-budgeted film for sophisticated tastes. But the Fox 2000 label is being shuttered.
Related content:
Leave a Reply