China’s Wanda Group Agrees To Pay $2.6B For AMC … 
Weinstein Clarifies ‘Sapphires’ Remarks; Best … 
How Agencies Did At This Year’s Upfronts: New … 
BOMBS AWAY! ‘Battleship’ Sinks To $25.3M … 
‘Lawless’ Premieres As The Weinstein Company … 
David Guarascio And Moses Port To Run … 
‘Beasts Of The Southern Wild’ Co-Writer Lucy … 
Fox Searchlight Fetes ‘Beasts Of The Southern … 
D.V. DeVincentis Sinks Teeth Into ‘The Night … 
Universal Buys ‘The Disciple Program’ As Mark … 
‘Madagascar 3′ And A ‘Big Brother’ … 
UPDATE: Facebook’s Big IPO Trading Day Results In A … 
UPFRONTS 2012: The Year Of Underdogs, Comebacks & … 
YRF’s Uday Chopra To Finance Nicole Kidman-Starrer … 
Cannes Swirls With Talk Of Convergence Between Distributors … 
TNT & Lifetime Looking At Cancelled CBS Drama … 
Women Dominate Early Competition Films As Marion Cotillard … 
Doug Liman Reacts To ‘I Just Want My Pants … 
Disney Sets Jesse Wigutow To Script ‘Peter And The … 
Anthony Mackie In Step With ‘Runner Runner’ 
Should You Buy Facebook? A Few Things To Consider Before … 
UPDATE: So Gerry Rich isn’t retiring from the biz and wasn’t fired. What happened is that Rich wasn’t thrilled when Josh Greenstein and Megan Colligan were upped. And when he complained to the Paramount bigwigs, they told him he could always ask to be let out of his contract. Which he did. Now the studio is denying any other moves in the department right now. Here’s what the studio said about Rich:
“Gerry Rich, the president of worldwide motion picture marketing at Paramount, is leaving the company. Rich requested to be let out of his contract and will depart the studio at the close of this month. His position will not be replaced and his duties at the studio will be assumed by Megan Colligan and Josh Greenstein, who were promoted this June to co-presidents of marketing for the Paramount Motion Picture Group. Colligan and Greenstein will report directly to Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
Loading ...
Hi. I agree that marketing is complex, but the solution is not to have 2 co-heads. You need to have one person who is responsible, who is a figurehead, and who people respect.
Josh is a great talent, and if he chooses his “team” wisely, he will perhaps create the best marketing team in the industry. That being said there is little use for Megan C. Let her go and give Josh the full reins.
Everyone knows that Josh Greenstein and Megan Colligan are MARRIED, right? She isn’t going anywhere unless she once again fails upwards. She is most definitely inept, and he ha talent but is an egotist with a “small-man” syndrome – I’d expect nothing less from a guy who graduated the Rudin and Weinstein salt mines. These two had the good fortune of marketing exemplary product from visionary directors…now that they are selling Big Paramount’s tripe, they will fall back to Earth quickly.
Gerry was more interested in name-dropping every movie star he ever happened to meet than actually empowering his team to get anything done.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, Lesher has brought over a couple of his people who have no idea how to market studio pictures – as other posters rightly point out, marketing is not just about cutting a great trailer; promotions, online, other aspects of creative and most importantly International experience matter too – all areas where Colligan and Greenstein have little experience, save for the occasional Dimension breakout film Greenstein worked on – hardly the track record and qualifications to release GI Joe, Transformers 2, Iron Man 2 and DWA titles.
what a bunch of stupid hires. 1 year from now the’ll be fired…as they are without knowledge.
Crazy Fox is an idiot. Greenstein managed to break records and appeal to a NON-nerd contingency with Transformers. He did the same with iron Man. Greenstein is savvy. If anyone in this town can open a film like GI Joe, it’s Greenstein. Who else? the mooks at Universal? The morons at WB? You gotta give credit where credit is due. Greenstein knows how to get the job done. His new hires? Only time will tell. What makes Greenstein great is that he’s part of the process. He’s not a figure head like most of these other guys in other studios. You watch this guys rise to the top. He’ll be running Paramount soon enough. But that just might not be big enough for him. As for Megan? I think she’s having a kid so she’ll be outta there soon enough.
A nutless monkey could open Transformers and Iron Man, Spandox.
Josh is very talented at picking the easiest projects, the no-brainers.
The guy is a hack. Paramount marketing is heading into some dark days.
Hey WB Man, nice snipe at your new co-workers…
Now that we’re part of the crack WB team who can’t open a movie if it doesn’t have the words “Harry” and “Potter” in it’s title, perhaps you can teach us a thing or two about film advertising.
Douche bag.
gotta say that Spandox is missing quite a few points, one of which haha picks up on
1. marketing for Transformers – film opened DESPITE the rigid and formulaic “spielberg”ian campaign – 1-sheets were awful, all the other materials came out too late into the marketplace – quite frankly the film was so groundbreaking and genuinely funny that it didn’t matter what they did with the marketing – the only decent decisions taken were not to reveal too much of the actual Transformers too early on.
2. I’m not saying Greenstein isn’t good at what he does (which is cut trailers) as well as gets on with filmmakers – it’s just that you need to be a much more rounded marketing talent and political beast to run a studio’s marketing dept
3. Spandox’s comments about other studios are largely irrelevant to my original argument – i’m not saying that most of the other studios are better (well maybe Fox) but Gerry Rich’s replacements are unqualified to fill his shoes
more executive changes will no doubt arise given the revolving door policy on the Paramount lot – watch this space
I have to say, Crazy Fox makes some good points. However, I think you’re downplaying the importance of “getting on with film makers.” Face it, no matter how savvy a marketing guru, the film makers usually have the final say. It takes a keen mind to be able to maneuver around the film makers and still carry through one’s own agenda. Greenstein does this brilliantly. At one time or another I have worked with every studio marketing department as a freelancer. Fox is hilarious because they’re run by a little Napoleon who’d rather play gold and take payola than offer any leadership to his brow beaten staff. Universal is just sad. No innovations. No intelligence. Just bland. Sony is a joke now that Goldstine is a lame duck. The new head spends most of his time on family trips than trying to sell any of they’re sad movies. Lionsgate, well, Lionsgate isn’t really a studio anyway so they don’t count. Paramount is fresh and hip. I’m not saying that these other studios don’t get lucky – they do – I’m just saying, the leadership at Paramount will prove to be far greater than those other studios. Time will tell, of course, but I do believe with Greenstein at the helm, Paramount will have more years of great success.