The Incredible Shrinking Studio Chief
High-flying execs are dropping like flies right now — at Amazon MGM, and possibly at Warner Bros. — turning what was once the most coveted job in Hollywood into one of the riskiest.
While it seems unlikely that any corner of the entertainment industry will be spared from being skewered during the 10-episode run of Apple TV+’s new satirical comedy series The Studio, the primary vehicle by which its creators interrogate the current malaise afflicting Hollywood is through the eyes of a modern-day studio executive. Like any great satirist, Seth Rogen, who plays an angst-ridden studio chief, is dancing — at times hilariously — around an IRL question: Has there ever been a more challenging and unpleasant time to be a studio executive than today?
It’s undoubtedly a question that former Amazon MGM Studio chief Jen Salke was asking herself March 27 when she was pushed out after seven years on the job. It’s also likely one that Warner Bros. Pictures co-heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are mulling as they try to swat away rumors that they might be next. And it was on the minds of the dozen current and former executives who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter to vent about their profession.