Amy Pascal
Over a January weekend in 2010, Amy Pascal made one of the most audacious decisions of her long tenure as Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chair, a nine-year run that has come to a tumultuous end.
When “Spider-Man” director Sam Raimi voiced his unhappiness with plans for a fourth installment of the USD2.5 billion franchise Pascal had shepherded, she abruptly changed course, ordering up one of the fastest reboots in blockbuster history.
“I wasn’t troubled by it,” Pascal matter-of-factly said at the time. “The Amazing Spider-Man,” with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, would hit theaters less than five years after “Spider-Man 3.”
The episode epitomized Pascal’s boldness, a trait that served her well as the most powerful female executive force in the industry, a studio head widely respected for championing women filmmakers (like Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers), producing ambitious awards-winners (“The Social Network”), churning out sharp comedies (“21 Jump Street”) and creating some major blockbusters (“Skyfall”).
But that same daring also contributed to her undoing. “The Interview,” the film that provoked the North Korean hacking attack that precipitate Pascal’s departure, was the kind of adventurous, star-driven film she loved to make, the kind other, less colorful executives would have surely balked at.
On Thursday, Sony announced that Pascal will step down in May, transitioning to a new production venture at the studio with a four-year contract. Pascal’s contract was due for renewal in March, and her ouster was possible, maybe even likely (the “Spider-man” turnaround, for one, has underperformed and franchise-making is everything in studio-land).
But the timing was obvious enough. Coming just a few months after the massive hack hit Sony, Pascal’s exit is the final blow in the messy fallout of the “Interview” scandal kicked off by hacker threats and fueled by embarrassing email leaks. It turned Pascal into a tabloid figure, tailed by TMZ cameras and pleading for forgiveness for racial remarks in emails in which she joked about President Obama’s presumed taste in movies.
“In recent months, SPE faced some unprecedented challenges, and I am grateful for Amy’s resilience and grace during this period,” said Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, who for now becomes the temporary film production head.
Conjecture immediately began swirling at who may succeed Pascal, a Sony executive for nearly 20 years. The parent company in Japan, which has struggled in recent years, may look to shake up its movie business, or it could promote from within.
There are several strong candidates already on Sony’s Culver City lot. Among them: Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad, TriStar Pictures head Tom Rothman (head of Fox until 2012), former DreamWorks executive Michael De Luca; and Jeff Robinov, the former Warner Bros. chief whose production company Studio 8 resides at Sony. Jake Coyle, New York , AP
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