It’s official: Tom Rothman has signed a multi-year extension of his contract as Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group. The deal will presently make Rothman the longest serving movie chief in Hollywood, and that features his run at twentieth Century Fox.
Some have questioned whether or not Rothman would ever retire, and the very fact of the matter is that he loves the film enterprise an amazing quantity. This is seen in him being a steadfast proponent of theatrical, and a believer in its future longevity, not simply in franchises, however authentic films as nicely. For Rothman, cinema is in regards to the large swings. If theatrical goes to outlive, originality should prevail, and typically which means co-financing some initiatives guaranteeing that they hit the display screen.
The information comes as Sony is anticipated to have a giant summer time with Karate Kid: Legends on May 30 and Oscar winner Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later on June 20.
During Rothman’s reign on the Sony Pictures Motion Group, he has achieved document profitability during the last decade, and that even goes for franchise films like Venom: The Last Dance which was made for $110M and minted near $480M on the international field workplace. Most just lately, Deadline reported that the studio’s function take of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us cleared $207M in spite of everything ancillaries and a worldwide haul of $350M.
Rothman will report in to Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja, and he’ll oversee the studio’s movement image companies, together with Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Pictures International Productions, and Sony Pictures Classics. Rothman additionally handles the studio’s dwell stage actions, which embrace MJ: The Musical.
The Sony Boss’ streak consists of the highest-grossing film in Columbia’s 100 yr historical past, Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.9B worldwide field workplace, excluding China), the just lately revived Bad Boys, Jumanji and Ghostbusters sequence, the Venom trilogy, Anyone But You, It Ends With Us, No Hard Feelings, The Woman King, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Equalizer trilogy, the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Oscar nominated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Quentin Tarantino’s Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, and Greta Gerwig’s Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, Little Women. Earlier this yr, Sony Pictures Classics gained the Academy Award for Best International Film for I’m Still Here.
Upcoming for Sony is Oscar nominee Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, Academy Award winner Taika Waititi’s Klara and the Sun, Kogonada’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, and Academy Award winner Sam Mendes’ audacious 4 Beatles movies. Also within the works is the fourth installment of Spider-Man starring Tom Holland, Jake Kasdan’s subsequent Jumanji movie, and Nintendo’s live-action movie of the smash hit online game, The Legend of Zelda. Horror franchises returning embrace I Know What You Did Last Summer, Insidious, and Zach Cregger’s new tackle Resident Evil.
Rothman joined Sony Pictures in 2013 as Chairman of TriStar Pictures earlier than being named Chairman of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group in February 2015. His contract was prolonged in 2021 with CEO being added to his Chairman title. Previously, Rothman was at Fox for 18 years, serving as Co-Chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment from 2000 to 2012 and earlier than that President of Twentieth Century Fox Film Group and President of Production for Twentieth Century Fox. There he oversaw quite a few hits together with, however not restricted to Avatar and the X-Men franchise (he was a proponent of an unknown Hugh Jackman on the time to play the long-lasting Wolverine). He was the founder and first President of Fox Searchlight. Prior to Fox, Rothman was President of Worldwide Production for the Samuel Goldwyn Company, Executive Vice President at Columbia Pictures, and a companion on the New York leisure regulation agency Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz. Rothman was a Co-EP on the close to $300M grossing Horton Hears a Who! and really early on in his profession was a co-producer on the Jim Jarmusch cult 1986 film, Down by Law, starring Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni, and John Lurie.