August
15
Paramount Marketing Chief Rich Exits Studio
Paramount has had a banner three years, from Transformers and Marvel's Iron Man to Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones 4. With the exception perhaps of the Mike Myers comedy Love Guru, which arguably nobody could have made work in the heat of the summer, the marketing department under Gerry Rich has been firing on all cylinders. This is not a case of a studio letting loose someone who isn't coming through on the job. This is someone fleeing a situation that had become untenable. (Paramount PR exec Mike Vollman also recently defected, to go to MGM/UA). Here's Variety's story.
Marketing is one area at Paramount that has been running smoothly. But new film group prexy John Lesher, who had to say good-bye to many of his hand-picked Paramount Vantage execs when that division was folded into Paramount, was determined to hang on to his marketing lieutenant, Megan Colligan. He wanted ex-Fox Seachlight PR exec Colligan and creative exec Josh Greenstein to work together directly under Rich (who reported to Rob Moore, not Lesher). That news did not go over well with Rich, who asked to be let out of his contract.
Lesher appears to have won this round. But will it be a Pyrrhic victory? While Colligan and Greenstein are both gifted, Colligan comes from the specialty PR universe, and creative exec Greenstein lacks Rich's depth of studio marketing experience.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfc7553ef00e5540415cc8834
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Paramount Marketing Chief Rich Exits Studio :
Comments