The Coming & Going Of A Studio Chief
Amy Pascal was not only a studio chief. She was the longest surviving studio chief in Hollywood by many years (in Hollywood time, of course).
Almost 19 years in the job.
The new longest-running show in Hollywood is Jim Gianopulos, who has been in place since 2000, although he only became a solo act in 2012 and just hired Stacey Snider to take a pretty firm handle on production as he thinks more expansively.
The second longest running show in town might shock you… Adam Goodman at Paramount. He got the job as production president in 2008, but was elevated to President of Paramount Film Group in June 2009. Brad Grey took his seat in 2005, so even if you count him, they’re #2.
Following shortly thereafter were Donna Langley and Adam Fogelson in October 2009. That became a solo act, The Donna Show, in September 2013.
In the fourth spot, Sean Bailey at Disney, where he took the job in January 2010. Alan Horn was added to the mix, above Bailey and below Iger in May 2012.
And the newest person in charge is a group, the three-headed (adorable) monster running things over at Warner Bros since Jeff Robinov left in June 2013.
Well… newest until someone takes the job at Sony.
Amy Pascal getting kicked to the curb at this time of year is unusual. It usually happens in the early fall after a tough summer. But it is not without precedent.
Pretty much no one leaves a job as a studio chief willingly… unless they are heading to run a different studio (see: Stacey Snider). And the reason that it usually happens is really simple… poor performance.
You do have the odd event of someone like John Lesher, being thrown into the job but never really getting a chance to get his feet under him before being used as a prop in a dramatic presentation meant to allow his boss to keep his job. But that is normally why studio heads fire marketing chiefs.
Here is where I point out the most obvious sign that Amy Pascal was on a short leash. Marc Weinstock out as head of Worldwide Marketing in September of 2013, the week before Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 opened… and after the summer of After Earth, White House Down, The Smurfs 2. And did I mention that the studio didn’t release a single movie in the first four months of that year? Clearly, all the fault of marketing.
Also shoved out the door around the same time, corporate marketing veteran Steve Elzer, who was blamed for not cleaning up messes fast enough. (The exec who replaced him has himself been dumped since.)
Ten months later, following $202m domestic for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the day after a $14m opening of Sex Tape, who was sent packing? Longtime marketing Sony-god, Jeff Blake.
Six and a half months later, with a contract renewal coming up and a singularly dramatic December at the studio (as it would be at any studio), Pascal, unable to hide behind marketing and publicity, was either going to take the bullet now or wait. But what were the chances that Sony, in some turmoil aside from this studio, was going to give her a big fat new deal, knowing that most of it would be paid out after her likely exit with six months to two years? Low.
Was she going to be saved by Bond? No. Remember, Weinstock was out the door nine months after Bond, even though Skyfall did an 80% higher gross than any other Bond movie, domestic and worldwide.
And the only other potential breakouts for Columbia before Bond were Pixels and Hotel Transylvania 2, both films featuring Adam Sandler, who, by the way, just did a deal for his next four movies with Netflix just as he completed his last film for Warner.
So a lot of foot-dragging would have happened until Pascal was either fired in September, after the much-maligned Cameron Crowe movie and Pixels, or around this time next year.
Here’s another thing that could not have helped. Universal had four more new movies than Columbia in 2014. But U spent less on production, grossed almost $200 million more domestically (and $75m less worldwide), and had their most profitable year ever.
Sony found itself apologizing for a $709 million worldwide gross on ASM2, rejiggering future plans for their most powerful franchise character, overspending on Fury so that it was only modestly profitable on a $210 million worldwide gross, seeing Universal hit the jackpot on Kevin Hart, whose mainstream movie career was built at Sony, and stumbling in a big way on The Interview, which will lose money, even though it could have been a massive profit center, especially after the hacking events.
Let’s take a quick walk through Amy Pascal’s history at Sony/Columbia.
I don’t really credit her with movies before Summer 1997… which was a pretty great summer. My Best Friend’s Wedding, Men in Black, Air Force One. A studio dream.
1998 – The studio had a stunning 28 movies released that year. (Screen Gems was launched in 2000.) Only one that cracked $100m domestic. And that was Godzilla, though there were smaller hits like Wild Things, Can’t Hardly Wait, and The Mask of Zorro. And lots of bombs.
1999 – 28 films again. Two $100m domestic grossers – Big Daddy and Stuart Little… one fairly cheap, one pretty expensive. Blue Streak and Cruel Intentions are the smaller hits. Girl, Interrupted turns out to be Oscar bait.
2000 – Just 27 films that year. That Patriot and Charlie’s Angels crack $100m domestic. But prices on production are rising and films like Hollow Man, grossing $73m domestic and $190m worldwide are only being saved from losing money by the emergence of the DVD market. 15 of the 27 releases gross under $10m domestic.
The first rumblings about Pascal being fired are heard.
2001 – A more manageable 14 titles at Columbia. But only one even gets to $60m domestic… The Wedding Planner. A Knight’s Tale doubles its gross internationally and becomes a DVD hit. Ali is considered a bomb. But a savior is coming.
2002 – $403m domestic, $822m worldwide. #2 domestic gross all-time, at the time. First $100m opening ever. Spider-Man. It didn’t matter that sequels to Men in Black and Stuart Little were overly expensive. It didn’t matter that The Sweetest Thing flopped. Or titles like I, Spy, Enough or Eight Crazy Nights would live in infamy. Spider-Man saved the day.
2003 – Nearly a can’t-miss year. Four $100m domestic grossers out of 9 releases. Two of the hits were so expensive that three-quels were ruled out. But also a hot DVD market. Even the hard-sell Big Fish ended up with $67m domestic.
2004 – Just seven titles. But 50 First Dates… hit! Secret Window… Johnny Depp… hit against cost. White Chicks… hit! Spider-Man 2… mega-hit! The Grudge… hit! Closer was a succès d’estime. And Spanglish… well… can’t win ’em all.
2005 – The beginning of Pascal’s second “career-endangered” period. Hitch was a big hit. But Spanglish, Man of the House, Guess Who, Lords of Dogtown, Bewitched, Stealth, and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo took out the late great Geoff Ammer, marketing chief, while Pascal planned for her survival.
2006 – Seven of the first 11 films open to $20m or better, starting with the unexpected success of The Pink Panther reboot. The Da Vinci Code does better than expected. Talladega Nights is a monster for Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow. The Grudge 2 marks the end of the Japanese teen-girl horror cycle, but the year finishes strong with Casino Royale (Sony’s first Bond) and the expected Will Smith drama, The Pursuit of Happyness.
2007 – Spider-Man 3 is on the schedule. The movie isn’t so great, but the numbers are. Also solid, Ghost Rider. And the unexpected smash is Superbad…. which makes up for the flop of Walk Hard. Not a great year for the studio. Surf’s Up gets some great reviews, but takes Sony’s animation ambitions a step backwards financially. Lindsay Lohan naked for the first time… flop. 30 Days of Night felt like it should have been bigger. Flat. Pascal rumors start again.
2008 – Vantage Point opens the year better than expected. 21 too. Zohan too. Hancock too. Step Brothers too. The studio makes the head of worldwide marketing (Valerie Van Galder) the co-head (with Marc Weinstock) of worldwide marketing as per the wishes of Van Galder. Mixed results in the second half of that year. Bond does well again. But everything else is soft.
2009 – Year starts with a surprise smash with Paul Blart: Mall Cop. But Pink Panther II can’t turn the trick again. The International, though mostly international money, dies an ugly death. Angels & Demons, the Da Vinci sequel underperforms. Pelham does okay, but soft. Year One tanks. Van Galder exits. The Ugly Truth does a bit better than expected. Julie & Julia is solid. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a surprise hit… the biggest from Sony Animation yet… but they fail to capitalize as effectively as some saw as possible. Zombieland is a solid surprise. The Michael Jackson post-mortem concert film takes off. And 2012 is a massive worldwide hit that few critics want to acknowledge. A couple of bombs thereafter… but things were feeling better.
2010 – Just 10 films. No sequels. One reboot… to smashing success (Karate Kid). Grown Ups becomes Adam Sandler’s top franchise. Salt hits. The Other Guys hits. The Social Network. Even the frickin’ The Tourist makes money thanks to international.
2011 – A pretty solid, excitement-free year. No really big hits. No really wild spending. Only a couple of bombs out of 14 releases. High points: The Green Hornet (saved from disaster), Battle: Los Angeles, Bad Teacher, The Smurfs and Moneyball.
2012 – The market makes big waves that are hard to overcome. 21 Jump Street is a home run. Cheap, big numbers, and owned in-house. The other hits have issues. Hotel Transylvania did well for Sony Animation, but still couldn’t get to Pixar/Disney/DreamWorks Animation numbers. Men in Black 3 did decent business, but the costs were so high, it needed to do better to make money. The Amazing Spider-Man did well, but took a step backward in gross from the Raimi films while DVD was falling out and other comic books movies were cracking the billion dollar ceiling. Skyfall, the studio’s third Bond film, went through the roof… but Sony only owns a small piece of that cash flow. And outside of those, a bunch of disappointments, from a low-grossing Ghost Rider sequel to a Sandler bomb, to the softest August opening for Streep, to the high drama over Zero Dark Thirty, which still did business, but not nearly as much as it should have.
2013 – 2012 wasn’t deadly… but 2013 was. Empty spring. Summer of disappointments After Earth, White House Down, and The Smurfs 2… with the two silver linings being This is The End and Grown Ups 2. But the losers just lost too much. And Marc Weinstock is shown the door. Amazingly, there are a series of hits right after: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2, Captain Phillips, and American Hustle. But the Pascal brand is damaged again… and buzzing continues through the hits.
2014 – The Monuments Men wildly overperforms after being delayed from Award Season 2013… but the price tag is so high, it is barely breakeven. RoboCop does okay… but doesn’t break out. Stalingrad barely gets a release. That’s the entire winter/spring until Amazing Spidey 2... which continues to fall backwards domestically, even though it did quite well internationally. 22 Jump Street is a surprise hit sequel. But Spider-Man is such a disappointment for the studio and Sex Tape dies… and now Jeff Blake is out… the highest level marketing exec and the second marketing firing in a year. Things are dicey.
The Equalizer does okay, but nothing that exciting. The Interview moves out of October into Christmas. Fury moves in to the October slot and overperforms, but the big price tag and the lack of real awards play or support by Brad Pitt leaves it feeling flat. And then, with Annie and The Interview left to come… The Hack.
People were surprised that Annie did $85m domestic. But with a $65m+ budget, that wasn’t enough… especially with little hope to match that number internationally. Break-even is possible… but so is a loss. And The Interview, up and down, was a highly likely hit movie at a reasonable price that will now cost the company at least $10 million.
And so it ends.
When Chappie – another troubled production – is released in a month, someone else will have the job Amy Pascal is vacating.
How could Pascal have survived? With due respect to all the filmmakers, not with Chappie, Paul Blart 2, a problem Cameron Crowe movie (fingers crossed that he fixed it), an Adam Sandler family effects comedy, a Vanessa Hudgens zombie comedy, an animated sequel, and Goosebumps. That might be a decent, kinda soft year… but it’s not going to raise the dead. And 19 years into a studio head job, it’s a miracle that Amy Pascal was anything but the walking dead. And now, she is.
If the studio was dissolved, would anyone, outside of the industry, know or care?
Looking over all those titles year by year, it’s kind of shocking that she survived certain years, especially that 2005 era. More power to her I guess!
I do have to say, the funniest and most telling part of the VF article by Mark Seal about her personality/job role was her exchange with Rogen about changing the ‘head blowing up scene’ at the end of the Interview. He plays the free speech card about not bowing to demands because he wants to maintain the blow-up scene for it’s laugh, and she has to play celebrity babysitter by gently chiding him while not claiming personal responsibility for demanding changes:
“The head explosion can’t be more obscured than it is” or the joke wouldn’t work. “This is now a story of Americans changing their movie to make North Koreans happy,” he continued. “That is a very damning story.”
“This isn’t some flunky,” Pascal shot back. “It’s the chairman of the entire Sony Corporation who I am dealing [with].”
In other words: “Hate to break it to you sport, but I’m not going to tell my boss (head of the 105th largest company in the world!!!) that we’re going to need to go ahead and spark international incidents between Japan and North Korea for the sake of your 30 second joke (on a movie I already regret making, and I haven’t even found out about the hack yet!). But maybe next time…”
They didn’t always say she was ‘talent-friendly’ for nothing! 🙂
Since when did “Chappie” become a troubled production?
When was the last time they re-upped her? From 2011 until now, it seemed like she played well enough to keep her job. Unless she was tossing things aside that were turning into hits at other places?? I suppose I could see losing Sandler and Kevin Hart as being problematic but Sandler was reaching the point of diminishing marginal utility. Was there any sense that A-listers weren’t taking their projects to Sony? Would the leaked emails have made it less likely that the stars would set up their projects there or take other jobs over Sony’s offerings? In that case then yeah, I could see the change. Otherwise, to me it seems just as likely things would rebound over the next couple of years as not. I mean, I don’t know what kind of crap they have in the pipeline now but they’ve put out enough stuff that’s done well that left me pretty cold.
I have to say some of her exchanges w/Rudin were pretty funny and made her seem a lot more human than bean-counting authoritarian that I would’ve imagined her to be.
TO-I agree that the e-mails made her seem more human. The whole ‘racism’ charge for both of them was blown out of proportion-Jon Chait should have used that as an example of the thought police taking over liberalism with zero sense of humor/room for not constantly policing everything you say.
I could see them having that exact e-mail exchange about GW Bush, and calling out which ‘idiotic’ movies they should talk to him about, and nobody would have said a word.
Glad to see Monuments Men “overperformed” to the point of at least breaking even. Not saying it was a masterpiece, but I feel there has been, well, an irrational hatred directed at the movie.
“I could see them having that exact e-mail exchange about GW Bush, and calling out which ‘idiotic’ movies they should talk to him about, and nobody would have said a word.”
Because that would have at least been more specific to Bush on an individual level, whereas the cracks made about Obama in those e-mails were more like “what are we going to eat at this breakfast for the president? Fried chicken and watermelon?”.
Hallick-I have black friends who I would make ‘cultural stereotype’ jokes with on the ‘fried chicken and watermelon’ level-does that make me/Pascal a racist? Oh wait, just in time for this debate, I guess it does:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120916/white-people-are-co-opting-black-peoples-jokes-about-white-people
If I face public shaming over telling some racially insensitive jokes, life will cease to matter, and tyranny will have defeated liberty and freedom.
“Hallick-I have black friends who I would make ‘cultural stereotype’ jokes with on the ‘fried chicken and watermelon’ level-does that make me/Pascal a racist?”
You? No, not if you still have those black friends. They probably get that you’re not racist and that you were making those kinds of jokes on some sarcastic/ironic level. But the same black friends probably wouldn’t think much of a couple of white people they’ve never met acting like numbskulls and making those remarks back and forth to each other at the expense of this stereotype.
I’m not sure if we’re at Poes Law level here, but for the sake of clarity, let’s actually clarify:
“But the same black friends probably wouldn’t think much of a couple of white people they’ve never met acting like numbskulls and making those remarks back and forth to each other at the expense of this stereotype.”
So Pascal and Rudin were different, how…? They were making ‘semi-racist’ jokes to each other in private e-mail. So because a black person was not CC:ed on those jokes, they lose all ‘racism or not’ credibility that they would have had if they had CC:ed (insert famous black actor, or POTUS)?
So we are perfectly clear, I e-mailed my (black) friend Kevin, and asked him exactly what he thought about this. His response:
“This like Deflategate. White people problems…”
Also, responding to another email, he said:
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUGj5qQFnnc
Tom Brady can throw an 80-yard pass within a five-inch radius of a receiver running down the field at 20 mph, and people think he goes out of his way to mafia-style deflate footballs in a meaningless game, when he already has three rings…Have any of you people ever tried to throw a football 50 yards total, or EIGHTY FUCKING YARDS!!!-in a perfect spiral? WTF? White people problems again…Then again, if he was black, he would probably get Vick’ed for it, so who knows?”
was your ‘black friend’…KEVIN HART???? hahahaha christ do white people ever just shut up and stop defending their bullshit
Even the frickin’ The Tourist makes money thanks to international. – But remember Graham king had international on that – so I doubt sony had any upside on that
Why did Pascal survive so long and through some rough spots? She was studio chief which I’m going to presume includes TV production. It’s possible that she took advantage of the ever expanding first run universe and fed that pipeline which in turn, got streamed a gazillion times, no?
“So Pascal and Rudin were different, how…? They were making ‘semi-racist’ jokes to each other in private e-mail. So because a black person was not CC:ed on those jokes, they lose all ‘racism or not’ credibility that they would have had if they had CC:ed (insert famous black actor, or POTUS)?”
The presence of a black person, physically or electronically, has nothing to do with it. My point was that if you’re joking around with your friend and you’re both making your fake racial jokes it’s a totally different animal from a couple of white people making racial jokes to each other on their own.
So we are perfectly clear, I e-mailed my (black) friend Kevin, and asked him exactly what he thought about this. His response:
“This like Deflategate. White people problems…”
So if Kevin was having lunch somewhere and he overheard a couple of white people at another table having this exact conversation with each other, he seriously wouldn’t be thinking something along the lines of “stupid assholes”? It just reads like casual stupid racism to me.
We are SO white.
:/
Sam: Pascal had virtually nothing to do with TV. Steve Mosko is the head of Sony Television.