Jennifer Salke will step down from her role as head of Amazon MGM Studios, the company said Thursday in an internal email viewed by the Times.
Salke won’t be going far. She’ll be starting a new production entity that has a first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios for both film and TV, according to the memo from Mike Hopkins, Salke’s boss.
“As I’ve been considering my next chapter, I’ve always been searching for that moment where I was positive that our work had set up Amazon MGM Studios for even more success in the long term,” Salke said in the email sent to staff. “When I look at the teams we’ve put in place, our amazing leaders, and the incredible slate of films and shows we’ve got in the pipeline, I realized now is that moment.”
Salke joined Amazon Studios in 2018 from NBC Entertainment, replacing Roy Price. At the time, Amazon was looking to beef up its Hollywood presence as it expanded further beyond its e-commerce roots.
Its major productions for Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service include “The Rings of Power,” “Fallout” and “Reacher.” Recent movies included the Dwayne Johnson-Chris Evans holiday action comedy “Red One” and the Anne Hathaway romantic dramedy “The Idea of You.”
A television executive for most of her career, she was met with skepticism from the film industry when she took over. Early in her tenure, the studio made series of major independent film acquisitions at the Sundance Film Festival that ended up flopping in theaters.
Later film efforts under the Amazon banner included a “Borat” sequel and a “Road House” remake.
Amazon acquired MGM Studios in 2022 for $8.5 billion. It recently secured a deal to take over creative control of the James Bond franchise from the Broccoli family after a lengthy impasse over the future of the series for which Salke took much of the heat. Amazon this week named Amy Pascal and David Heyman as the new 007 producing team.
The company does not plan to fill Salke’s position. Film head Courtenay Valenti and TV head Vernon Sanders will now report directly to Hopkins, the head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. The studio will operate as distinct film and TV operations, the email said.
The decision reflects a broader effort by Amazon to streamline leadership structures.
Hopkins joined Amazon in 2020 to oversee Prime Video after serving as CEO of Hulu, then taking on a high-profile stint at Sony Pictures Entertainment, where he ran the television business. He had previously served as a respected distribution executive at Rupert Murdoch’s Fox.
When Hopkins moved to Amazon, he replaced one of Jeff Bezos’ longest-serving executives and reported directly to the billionaire. He has been busy building Amazon’s sports business, which includes “Thursday Night Football,” NASCAR, mixed martial arts and New York Yankees baseball games.
Salke’s authority has been diminished since Hopkins joined Amazon. She stayed heavily involved in the programming and helped build “Reacher,” “The Boys” and the reboot of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” but Hopkins was the boss, a departure from earlier in Salke’s tenure when she was the top studio executive in Culver City.
In his email to staff, Hopkins was complimentary of Salke’s role at the company, saying that “her vision, creativity and industry relationships were (and are) so apparent that I had no doubt our work together could be transformative not only to Amazon, but also to the industry as a whole.”
Salke’s decision to leave was her choice, according to a person familiar with the matter but unauthorized to comment publicly.
Under her leadership, Salke cultivated deals with high-profile talent.
“She is someone who really believes in making a home for talent,” said Latasha Gillespie, a former Amazon MGM Studios executive who is now an executive board member for Getty House Foundation. “The reason why talent liked working with us is because of the message Jen permeated in the organization about how you care for people who you are in business with.”
But some industry insiders said Salke wasn’t as effective at managing costs, pointing to overspending on talent and bloated budgets for some of Amazon’s series, including the 2023 Joe and Anthony Russo-directed spy thriller “Citadel,” which reportedly cost more than $200 million. The show did not register with U.S. audiences or critics.