Josh Greenstein’s move from Sony Pictures to Paramount Global has caused a shakeup at the Culver City lot. Sony Pictures has announced a restructuring of its senior film leadership ranks under motion pictures chief Tom Rothman, solidifying his position as the unrivaled leader in this tumultuous time for Hollywood.
On a recent episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast, Brent Lang, Variety’s executive editor overseeing film coverage, delves into the repercussions of Greenstein’s anticipated departure from Sony Pictures to assume a significant role at the revamped Paramount Global post its sale to Skydance Media and RedBird Capital. With Greenstein’s exit, industry veteran Sanford Panitch now stands as the sole president of the film group under Rothman.
Lang explains, “Mostly this just kind of clarifies what everybody had assumed was going to happen, which was that Josh was going to move over to Paramount. This has been in the works for over a year. What it does is it just formalizes that Sanford Panitch is going to remain at the studio as president of the Motion Picture Group. was co-president with Josh. And it elevates Peter Kang to be in charge of production, which is a very large role that oversees the kind of the day-to-day operations of all the different things that are filming.”
Rothman, who took the helm of Sony Pictures’ film division in 2015, now sits at the top of the film pyramid under Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja. Lang describes Rothman as “a legendary studio head, who’s become the elder statesman of Hollywood.”
The podcast episode also features a Vintage Variety tutorial on Variety’s iconic slanguage, including terms like sitcom, soap opera, biopic, and disk jockey that originated from the publication and have since become mainstream.
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(Pictured: Josh Greenstein)
