Amy Pascal, shown in 2013, is leaving her job as Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman in May.(Photo: Jordan Strauss, Invision, via AP)
Amy Pascal is preparing for her exit interview.
The Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman, who remained at the center of a Hollywood hurricane known as The Interview, an embattled comedy about the death of Kim Jong-un she greenlit – which tipped off one of the largest corporate hacking scandals in history – is leaving her position in May.
Pascal is not going far: the executive will launch "a major new production venture" at the studio, according to a statement from Sony sent to USA TODAY.
"I have spent almost my entire professional life at Sony Pictures and I am energized to be starting this new chapter based at the company I call home," said Pascal in a statement. "I have always wanted to be a producer."
The move is hardly surprising. At the height of the Sony hacking scandal, Pascal's private emails were hacked, producing a number of embarrassing stories for the company, including a racially charged email exchange with producer Scott Rudin in which she joked about President Obama's movie preferences. Both swiftly apologized.
At the time, Sony stood by Pascal as they weathered daily assaults by a group who called themselves the "Guardians of Peace." The company's financials, employee health records, full-length unreleased films and eyebrow-raising email exchanges about A-list stars (from Angelina Jolie to Kevin Hart) poured into the ether, and were swiftly batted about in industry and gossip blogs alike.
Pascal kept a brave face, attending The Interview's Los Angeles premiere and trying to keep company morale up alongside CEO Michael Lynton in town hall meetings on the company's Culver City, Calif. lot.
But to many, the writing was on the wall.
"When you have a scandal of this magnitude there needs to be some kind of executive change," says Matthew Belloni, executive editor for The Hollywood Reporter. "Especially when you're dealing with a Japanese corporation where the leaders routinely take the fall for bad things that happen to the company."
Meanwhile, Sony just reported an improved outlook for its fiscal year, on Tuesday saying that the hack at Sony Pictures is not likely to hurt its finances overall and that it was benefiting from strong sales of gaming and network services and devices.
Pascal joined Columbia Pictures in 1988. Her forthcoming company will focus on "movies, television and theater," according to Sony.
Sony Pictures Entertainment has signed the dot on a four-year agreement with Pascal and will finance her new company, with plans to distribute her new movies worldwide.
"This is a very typical arrangement for studio heads that exit," says Belloni, noting that Pascal will likely still be credited as a producer on Sony's biggest franchises, from Spider-Man to Bond.
Pascal's biggest loss?
"She's no longer a buyer," he says. "She's not a studio head. "There's only a few people (in Hollywood) who can say yes. She's now not one of those people."
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise, Mike Snider
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1D2hQGr
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1zS4s71
0 comments:
Post a Comment