From the MSN news that pops up when I sign into messenger came this
news article:
Talent agent Brad Grey to run Paramount
10:11 AEDT Fri Jan 7 2005
AP - US talent agent and producer Brad Grey will take over the
Paramount Motion Picture Group.
Grey will become chairman and chief executive officer of Paramount
on or before March 1, it was announced on Thursday by Viacom Inc,
the media conglomerate that owns Paramount.
Details on his compensation package were not disclosed.
He will succeed Sherry Lansing, who led the studio for 12 years.
In addition to running creative aspects of the studio, Grey will
assume the business duties that had been assigned to Jonathan
Dolgen, who left shortly after Tom Freston and Les Moonves were made
co-presidents of Viacom in June.
Grey, 47, has run the talent agency Brillstein-Grey Entertainment
and also produced films and television shows, most notably the HBO
series The Sopranos.
Grey is an unusual choice because he has not worked inside the
Hollywood system.
But Viacom noted that his relationships with actors, directors and
other talent would help reinvigorate the studio, which has
languished over the past few years.
"He is exactly what we need - a dealmaker, a successful
entrepreneur, and a man with a great outreach to the creative
community," Viacom Chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone said in a
statement.
Paramount has struggled at the box office under a regime that took
few creative and financial risks.
Redstone vowed to increase the studio's budget.
The studio has had some recent success with Lemony Snicket's A
Series of Unfortunate Events and The Sponge Bob Squarepants Movie.
Paramount is scheduled to release the Steven Spielberg film The War
of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise, later this year.
Lansing, 60, will stay with Paramount to help with the transition.
She announced in November that she would step down at the end of
2005 when her contract expired.
It was not clear from Thursday's announcement how Grey has
extricated himself from his ownership of his talent agency or his
share of the production company Plan B, which is co-owned by
Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt.
İAAP 2005
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