Tuesday, Amazon MGM Studios announced that producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman would produce the next James Bond film of the company. But with hindsight, the press release was perhaps just as visible for what it did not understand: a quote from the head of the studios of Amazon MGM Jennifer Salke. Instead, it was the head of cinema courtenenay Valenti who announced the agreement.
Hollywood may have been shaken, but not stirred, by the news of this week that Salke was released after seven years on Amazon-and how James Bond was perhaps among the questions that led to his departure. Talking about the departure of Salke in the middle of a power struggle with Mike Hopkins, the chief of the Prime Video & Amazon MGM studios, had turned for some time – and the agreement of the last month putting the leap IP in the creative hands of Amazon was another signal that Hopkins was going to make a change.
Salke and Barbara Broccoli, the long -standing goalkeeper of the Bond IP, had not seen his eyes on the spell of the franchise from the moment Amazon acquired MGM – including this precious property – for 8.5 billion dollars in 2022. He was Hopkins, a non -creative execution which was the boss of Salke from the Broccolis.
As Variety Recently noted, the broccoli would have told others that it did not feel inspired by work with Salke. Things came to a head when the WSJ published an article in December on the bond. This caused a high alert in the studio that Salke’s relationship on the film side was lacking and that she did not have the creative chops to win the plane on one of the greatest franchises in Hollywood history. (This also helped to accelerate the Amazon agreement to buy the broccoli after the negotiations starts at the beginning of 2024.)
Sources have said that Salke wanted to leap a wider and less dangerous character who could play in television shows and wear video games. But his desire to do 007 in a cuddly hero for Central America has made the broccoli grimacted, according to several sources. The initiates wrapped that the vision of Salke de Bond suggested to him as a rebellious spy of cookie from a NBC drama, and not a serious IP that only a handful of the most estimated directors could attack.
Last month, Broccoli and his half-brother, Michael Wilson, finally signed this agreement giving an Amazon franchise control-but perhaps they also had a clue that the structure inside the company was about to change.
Salke has long had the reputation of having a lively eye for creative talents. This is what kept it in place for seven years as a creative leader for a better known technological company for free delivery than freedom of expression.
But at Amazon, it became clear that the world was not enough for Hopkins – and that speculation was already in the air when it announced in a memo to staff members that Salke would go from work to a first production agreement.
Talent, of course, was considered a weak link in hopkins in what was otherwise a list of constantly increasing achievements since arriving at the technology giant. But if Salke could not operate with what is ultimately considered to be the most important brand to exploit in the Amazon MGM universe, then it was the final straw necessary for Hopkins to make its movement.
The diamonds may be eternal, but these jobs are not-and the James Bond problem of Salke may have been the ultimate impetuous for his departure, but that was not the only reason. Of course, for the CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, the founder Jeff Bezos and the management team of Seattle, Talent is fun and Hollywood is nice. But this is not the net profit. And while Hollywood whims mean that Salke and his team spend big dollars in swings that do not always work, Hopkins won fans in the North to grow live sports affairs from video, expanding its international scope and strengthening the subscriptions of Amazon channels. More recently, Hopkins won a large victory by bringing Apple TV + to Prime Video as a complementary module. For Seattle, sealing offers like this is where money is.
The relationship between Hopkins and Salke has always been tenuous – but it worked for a while because Salke has creative products, something that a buttoned suit like Hopkins, even with his previous stays at Sony Pictures TV, Hulu and Fox Networks Group, was missing. She took what was a besieged streamer making a niche television, of indie style – and has trouble recovering after allegations of sexual harassment against her prize on the head, and transformed it into a great traditional player programming two procedures of “Bosch” and the SCI -Fi series with surprising reward caches such as “boys” and “Fallout”. She also managed to sail on Bezos’ personal obsession, “The Lord of the Rings: the rings of power”, which with his blessing has become the most expensive television series in history (costing more than $ 1 billion).
“The rings of power” have done well, although it was worth it, it will be forever debated – not that it counts, as long as Bezos is happy. It was the next Big Budget Stab from Amazon to create a large world world, the “citadel” of the Russo brothers, which everyone always talks about, and what can also have turned the trend against Salke in the world of Hopkins.
Considered second From the most expensive series of all time (with a budget that has increased due to reshoots), the idea seemed super on paper: a large series of spy action (with Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden) which would then be supported by spin-offs in the territories of the whole world. So far, the mother vessel has been broadcast in 2023 and has been renewed for a season 2, while Italian follow-up (“Citadel: Diana”) and Indian (“Citadel: Honey Bunny”) have been broadcast. But it is certainly not the phenomenon of pop culture that Amazon was waiting for, and there is no sign if or when one of these followers will never see daylight.
During an SXSW panel earlier this month organized by the chief of the MPA Charlie Rivkin, Salke approached the balance between taking creative risks, but being aware of budgets: “Creative conviction really rules the rules during the day, but you must have a lot of things, which is another Amazon principle,” she said. “So, if you have a lot of conviction and you are mistaken all the time, I don’t think we will be sitting in our work for a very long time. You might sometimes go wrong, because you want to kiss the risks.”
According to Talk Around Hollywood, with the King Low on many Amazon Big Budget projects, Hopkins had removed Greenlight Power from Salke last year. Then came the recent reshuffle with Bond.
And with this, Hopkins probably felt that he was ready to be the executive that the creative teams of Amazon MGM Studios have reported directly, and to eliminate this layer between him and creative. The timing is not french: it occurs a few days before Cinemacon, in which the Amazon MGM studios will appear on the main scene for the first time to preview its theatrical slate. And Hopkins wants to be this messenger.
This is why Salke is not replaced, as well as the cost savings that remove a studio manager likely well composed. “RasteryLining” is to know how Hopkins presented it in the city representatives on Thursday when he made calls to explain the move, and how television (under Vernon Sanders) and the film (directed by Courtenay Valenti) would now report to him.
More changes could be underway, however, as Hopkins noted in his service note: “We will take a few weeks to have thoughtful conversations with the direct Jen and others to finalize the ideal long -term structure for the Amazon MGM Studios organization as a whole, and we will have more to share on this work soon.”
As for the next step for Salke, Sources Around Town noted that its new production agreement for the first look at Amazon in fact prepared it for a new chapter which will somewhat free it from the creative constraints that accompany the response to technological bosses. And, they note, the former practice common of the parachute production agreement is quite rare these days, and the fact that Salke is always comfortably committed to this new role perhaps testifies to the impact it has had by making Amazon a real Hollywood player.
Hopkins gave this list in his note: “` `The rings of power”, ” Fallout ”, “ asryry ” ‘“ Red One,’ ‘Maxton Hall’ the public … and this list only covers the last 18 months, “he wrote. Indeed, given its impressive history of Amazon, sources in program suppliers say they hope that the release of Salke is not an indication that creativity takes a back seat in the streaming giant.
Salke was also greeted for his aggressive thrust to put more female voice and talent on the screen. “When I arrived on Amazon, I felt that we did very well with what everyone calls” jacks “-” Jack Ryan “, Jack” Reachère “-we got men,” she said during this SXSW session. “And we really felt particularly as a female leadership team. For us, it is a question of representing the public. And I felt as if we were not really doing a good job creating an addictive destination for women … This team brought together an incredible slate for women, without abandoning our “dad television”. The crossed women of the fingers therefore come en masse, and we do even more content in cinema and television for women. »»
As a producer, Salke will continue to have this chance of doing so – and perhaps, leaving after seven productive years on Amazon, this should give it a quantum of comfort.
