With eOne‘s $230M acquisition of rival Canadian giant Alliance Films completed earlier this month, the executive structure in the UK, where the companies overlapped, is coming into somewhat clearer focus. On the eve of the European Film Market in Berlin, eOne today said that Alliance SVP Worldwide Acquisitions and Productions, Robert Walak, is leaving the company to pursue other ventures. The well-liked London-based exec had been at Alliance since 2003 and oversaw the acquisitions of such important titles as The Twilight Saga series in Spain and The King’s Speech and The Woman In Black for the UK. Also leaving is Jon Bourdillon, who headed up home entertainment at eOne. He will be replaced by Ken McMahon of Alliance subsidiary Momentum. Earlier this month, eOne exec Alex Hamilton was named managing director in the UK to oversee the combined film team there. Other exec appointments today include Charlotte Thorp as head of TV sales and business development, Nick Smith as head of digital, Paul Lofting as head of sales, Rebecca Mortimer as head of marketing and Theresa Roberts as head of publicity. When the acquisition of Alliance was complete on January 9, that company’s co-founder/CEO, Victor Loewy, and president Charles Layton both left.


Eone is stupid to let RW leave. RW knows how to find projects… Great at acquiring. He blows all the Eone employees out of the water. Letting him go, is a huge mistake. You have to live with it.
Cheers mates.
Completely agree, dumb move by EONE but no doubt RW will land on his feet, if he hasn’t already.
This take over is just bad news all around.
Terrible to see Momentum getting stripped apart and sold off.
A savvy, dynamic, well liked independent company for independent film with some of the sharpest minds in UK film. Really great to work with.
It’ll be interesting to see where the staff end up once the dust settles – if other distributors and production companies are smart they’ll be snapping them up NOW.
Wow. He’ll e just fine, but losing Walak is a BAD move. No one respected more.
I’ve done business with Robert Walak for years now. He is one of the best in the international acquisitions space and eOne bothered to count the grosses of the films he has acquired for Alliance over the years in his territories, they would know that. He is also one of the few that truly gets the business in the US and is able to get what he needs from executives and agents here through his charm and professionalism. Dumb move eOne.
Robert is a very talented executive and will land on his feet.
Good luck Robert – look forward to seeing you soon. Best, Bill
ROBERT IS GREAT!!!!
Can’t imagine eOne being so short sighted. You have the ability to go further so it’s their loss but your gain.
Take care brother, see you soon.
Andy x
Gambit + Movie 43 = we don’t want you
And don’t give me The King’s Speach, Woman In Black argument, you’re only as good as your last movie!
Movie 43 is part of a (non Walak negotiated) output deal, pretty poor understanding of how an output deal works there pal, try googling it.
Actual last movie would be Quartet… as you say, he’s as good as his last movie, a UK no. 1
Actually your the clueless one as he was in on this particular output deal. I should know I was at the meetings. And what he paid for Quartet, it needs another £3m theatrical to stand a chance of breaking even after the end of its life.
BTW It didn’t get to number 1 in the UK – get your facts right!
Aww, and up to this point you were coming across as so credible..
yo!
quartet already broke even and will generate overages just out of theatrical and yes it was number one just before les mis opened. so shut your face, you muppet.
Dear Muppet (you called yourself that, not me) and Ms Leah
Firstly Quartet in the UK was never number 1, unless you were to say that it was the number 1 Maggie Smith movie of the week. The week before Les Mis which was its first week, it was actually number 4. It was behind Hobbit which did £5.8m that week, Life of Pie £5m and The Impossible £3.7m. Quartet actually took £2.8m.
So, once again – get your facts right.
Secondly, it’s a shame when people lose their jobs, but some people are better than others. Let’s face facts, in this case the eOne acquisitions person is better than the Momentum person. Similarly, you have no idea what you’re talking about, and if you haven’t lost your job already, I’m sure it’s just matter of time.
He is always going on about The Kings Speech. Two words for him, Hamlet 2, well one word and a number actually. Oh and stop pretending you acquired Let The Right One In, we all know it was Louis Tisné.
For anyone who took the above comment seriously, it was of course a joke. How can you not respect a guy who gets £45M out of one independent Britsh drama and then £22M out of his second.
QUARTET was the number one film in the UK on the 10th January 2013.