On May 14 of last year, Amazon MGM’s studios chief Jennifer Salke went on stage in Pier 36 in New York, seeking to convince the advertisers that Amazon played to win in Hollywood.
“Welcome in the next one hundred years of Amazon MGM studios,” said Salke to those gathered in the space of the Caverneux event, which also presented silver heaps kept by insurance agents to promote Mr. Beast Beast gamesand a Relay Cabana Bar.
What followed was a cavalcade of stars, intended to emphasize that Amazon was attached to the company. Will Ferrell, Roger Federer, Jake Gyllenhaal, Alicis Hodge, Alicia Keys, Patton Oswalt, Keke Palmer, Alan Ritchson, Octavia Spencer, Hannah Waddingham and Reese Witherspoon were among those who joined Salke on the scene.
In the entertainment sector, of course, commitment is never permanent. Salke successfully sold Amazon’s ambitions to Madison Avenue, but less than a year later, Amazon Mike Hopkins’s frame, which oversees the video efforts of the technology giant, Salke was out, going to a production agreement.
The technology giant can be relatively new in Hollywood, but it can always offer an old -fashioned separation gift for its executive class.
On Thursday, March 27, Hopkins spent the afternoon in the Klaxon ensuring agents and talents that the elimination of Salke’s surprise was simply a question of rationalizing the Table of Amazon organizations. He told people that he wanted a traditional studio with a cinema and designated television boss who reported to him directly and that Salke was an additional and useless layer, a source that spoke to him tells him The Hollywood Reporter. But no one was fully completing this story.
Salke’s departure comes when the technology giant was at the heart of planning the annual Upfront event of this year for advertisers, with plans to organize an evening event at the Beacon Theater of Amazon on May 12 with a first -rate star video, Amazon MGM studios, television channels, Twitch, Shit, IMDB, Amazon Live, and Amazon. “Without forgetting that the studio will decampe itself in Las Vegas next week for its very first presentation for theater owners in Cinemacon.
This scale, however, underlines the reality of entertainment activity in a world which is increasingly motivated by technology giants. In the past not so distant, studio leaders and network presidents were industry titans, star manufacturers who could make or break careers and sculpt popular culture.
Technological companies engaged in a slow acquisition of Hollywood seem to feel differently.
Vernon Sanders, Mike Hopkins, Alan Ritchson, Laura Lancaster, Jennifer Salke and Aldis Hodge during the initial presentation of Amazon to Pier 36 on May 14, 2024.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, in a town hall of employees last month, of which a recording disclosed, told staff that he wanted to re -examine the employees who actively did things, and not to create larger teams. “The way to get ahead of Amazon is not to accumulate a giant team and a fief,” said Jassy, according to the recording. “There is no price for having a large team.”
Hopkins cited Jassy’s efforts in his note to staff. He said that after the release of Salke, “we decided to flatten our leadership structure a little and not to fulfill the role of studios chief. In accordance with the recent work of Amazon to rationalize the reporting lines and accelerate decision -making, we estimated that it was the best direction for our studio, which will now work as distinct cinema and television studios.”
It is a model that should be familiar to Netflix employees, which abandoned the descending model of a network or a studio chief.
But the upheaval of Amazon MGM studios also highlights how different the new environment is. For Amazon, entertainment studio activity is a cog in a machine that includes a first-rate video, sports, a musical application and a podcast network, a live game platform and a channel business.
In Amazon, the chief of the studio was In some respects, intermediate management, relating to Hopkins, which in turn is Jassy.
Before Amazon, Salke was president of entertainment at NBC and, before that, had a long career on television with stays at 20th Century Fox and Aaron Spelling Productions, and credits that include megahits like It’s us And Joy. Salke’s diffusion history was beneficial for ultra-popular series like Director,, To fall And Jack RyanBut some strokes of Higherconcept were more elusive.
The big budget Rings series, Power ringshas become the biggest start of steam, but the show turned out to have less power. While Power rings was Green-Blished by the predecessors of Salke, the spying thriller Citadel Russo brothers was defended by Salke.
Video’s bonus The Lord of the Rings: The rings of power.
Gracious Video Prime
CitadelScheduled like a flagship series for streamer, was a disturbed jump show when the recovery, two competing cuts and the crew defections of the first season added $ 75 million to the budget already of $ 160 million. At the time, the show became the second most expensive series ever made, only taking the Amazon title to its other Amazon Power rings. Nevertheless, the series was renewed for a second season before the first season of April 2023 of the first season.
“If you asked some people, they say it is not a surprise,” said an agent, who added that Salke was disadvantaged. “It wasn’t fair. Jen’s expertise was in Television, But She Had to Do Everhything and think about What She Had to Deal with – She Didn’t Have A Studio Infrastructure. Could Things have Gone Better? Of Race. But at the same time, she’s been there – Seven Years and Shears some hits with Director And Jack Ryan. “”
The Amazon agreement for MGM, which the technology giant acquired in 2022 for $ 8.5 billion, also complicated questions. Mix one of the busiest and most discovered corporate crops in Silicon Valley with one of Hollywood’s most legendary studios was never going to be easy, and management teams have never completely gelled.
In 2020, Salke began to introduce himself to Hopkins, who was appointed chief of Amazon video entertainment. “Mike and Jen have been in a power struggle for years and they never got on. It was never a happy relationship, ”adds a source that worked with Hopkins and Salke.
And then there was the situation of broccoli. The sale of the Bond franchise by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson in Amazon in February sent shock waves to industry.
Since the acquisition of MGM, which has first allowed Amazon to access the Bond, Broccoli and Wilson universe has not developed new bond productions. Many reports and initiated have cited a controversial relationship between producers of Bond and Salke as one of the reasons why a Bond film has not yet been shaken or moved on Amazon. “It was a mistake in a series of errors. And it was an error of almost a billion dollars, “said a producer linked to the studio division.
Salke’s name was extremely absent from one of the press releases surrounding the historic transaction. “Part of the work is to manage talents. Hollywood is an animated show and your work is to manage animals. And she just didn’t do it, ”explains the source that had worked with Hopkins and Salke. Sources say that Amazon seeks to bring another internal executive to supervise 007 after having officially brought in producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman to direct the new Bond film.
In the wake of the acquisition of MGM and Salke being the subject of the production manager of Warner Bros. Courtenay Valenti for a long time, after years of industry confusion about intention, the film Amazon began to take more a separate form. Local hits like Relay And The idea of you Weaned popular in streaming, while a well -appointed upcoming calendar includes dishes of commercial action like Ben Affleck The accountant 2 and Shane Black Title Play dirtyas well as prestigious offers like Luca Guadagnino Movie After hunting.
The studio also doubled in the cinemas, with Valenti at the Sxsw Film Festival of this year, saying that Amazon MGM would be released 12 to 14 theatrical films in 2026. “(Salke) was very motivated by Amazon, but with a commitment to make theatrical films and not only to feed the streamer, there was no longer any need for her.
In the end, it seems that Salke’s position, with Valenti Manuling Film and Vernon Sanders on television, turned out to be obsolete in the new world of entertainment with technological predominance. Salke was cited in Hopkins email to the staff, announcing its release, saying: “As I considered my next chapter, I always looked for this moment when I was sure that our work had created Amazon MGM Studios for more success in the long term.”
