On Tuesday, Amazon MGM Studios announced that producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman would produce the company’s upcoming James Bond film. But in hindsight, the press release was perhaps just as noticeable for what it didn’t include: A quote from Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke. Instead, it was head of film Courtenay Valenti who announced the deal.
Hollywood was perhaps shaken, but not stirred, by this week’s news that Salke has exited after seven years at Amazon — and how James Bond was perhaps among the issues that lead to her departure. Talk of Salke’s departure amid a power struggle with Mike Hopkins, the head of Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, had been swirling for a while — and last month’s deal putting the Bond IP into the creative hands of Amazon was a further signal that Hopkins was about to make a change.
Salke and Barbara Broccoli, the longtime steward of the Bond IP, had not seen eye-to-eye on the fate of the franchise from the moment that Amazon acquired MGM — including that valuable property — for $8.5 billion in 2022. It was Hopkins, a non-creative exec who has been Salke’s boss since joining Amazon in 2020, who instead had been developing rapprochement with the Broccolis.
As Variety recently noted, Broccoli is believed to have told others that she did not feel inspired by working with Salke. Things came to a head when the WSJ published an article in December about the Bond standstill. That caused a high alert within the studio that Salke’s relationship on the film side was lacking and that she didn’t have the creative chops to land the plane on one of the biggest franchises in Hollywood history. (It also helped to accelerate to Amazon’s deal to buy out the Broccolis, after negotiations began in early 2024.)
Sources said Salke wanted to make Bond into a broader, less dangerous character who could star in TV shows and carry video games. But her desire to make 007 into a cuddly hero for Middle America made Broccoli wince, according to multiple sources. Insiders snarked that Salke’s vision of Bond suggested him as a rebellious cookie-cutter spy out of an NBC drama, not serious IP that only a handful of the most esteemed directors could tackle.
Last month, Broccoli and her half-brother, Michael Wilson, ultimately signed off on that deal giving Amazon control of the franchise — but perhaps they also had a hint that the structure inside the company was about to change.
Salke has long had a reputation for possessing an sharp eye for creative talent. It’s what kept her in place for seven years as the creative leader for a tech company known more for free shipping than free expression.
But at Amazon, it was becoming clear that the world was not enough for Hopkins — and that speculation was already in the air when he announced in a memo to staffers Thursday that Salke would be moving on from her job into a first-look production deal.
Talent, of course, was seen as Hopkins’ weak link in what has otherwise been an ever-growing list of accomplishments since arriving at the tech behemoth. But if Salke couldn’t make it work with what’s ultimately now seen as the most important brand to exploit in the Amazon MGM universe, then that was the final straw necessary for Hopkins to make his move.
Diamonds may be forever, but these jobs are not — and Salke’s James Bond problem may have been the ultimate impetuous for her departure, but it wasn’t the only reason. Sure, for Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, founder Jeff Bezos and the Seattle management team, talent is fun and Hollywood is nice. But that’s not the bottom line. And while the vagaries of Hollywood means Salke and her team are spending big bucks on swings that don’t always work, Hopkins has been winning fans up north for growing Prime Video’s live sports business, expanding its international reach and bolstering Amazon Channels subscriptions. Most recently, Hopkins’ scored a big victory by bringing Apple TV+ to Prime Video as an add-on. For Seattle, sealing deals like that is where the money’s at.
The relationship between Hopkins and Salke was always tenuous — but it worked for a time because Salke has the creative goods, something a button-down suit like Hopkins, even with his previous stints at Sony Pictures TV, Hulu and Fox Networks Group, lacked. She took what was an embattled streamer doing niche, indie-style TV — and struggling to recover following sexual harassment allegations against its then-head, Roy Price — and turned it into a big, mainstream player programming both broad procedurals like “Bosch” and sci-fi series with surprising awards cache such as “The Boys” and “Fallout.” She also managed to navigate Bezos’ personal obsession, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” which with his blessing became the most expensive TV series in history (costing more than $1 billion).
“The Rings of Power” did fine, although whether it was worth it will be forever debated — not that it matters, as long as Bezos is happy. It was Amazon’s next big budget stab at creating a big, global universe, the Russo brothers’ “Citadel,” that everyone’s still talking about, and what may also have turned the tide against Salke in Hopkins’ universe.
Considered the second most-expensive series of all time (with a budget that ballooned due to reshoots), the idea seemed great on paper: A big spy action series (starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden) that would then be supported by spinoffs in territories around the world. So far, the mothership aired in 2023 and has been renewed for a Season 2, while follow-up Italian (“Citadel: Diana”) and Indian (“Citadel: Honey Bunny”) editions have aired. But it is most certainly not the pop culture phenomenon that Amazon was expecting, and there’s no sign if or when any of those follow-ups will ever see the light of day.
During a SXSW panel earlier this month hosted by MPA chief Charlie Rivkin, Salke addressed the balance between taking creative risks but being mindful of budgets: “Creative conviction really rules the rules the day, but you have to be right a lot, which is another Amazon principle,” she said. “So if you got plenty of conviction and you’re wrong all the time, I don’t think we’d be sitting in our jobs very long. You could be wrong sometimes, though, because you want to embrace risk.”
According to talk around Hollywood, with the ROI low on many big-budget Amazon projects, Hopkins had taken away greenlight power from Salke last year. Then came the recent shakeup with Bond.
And with that, Hopkins probably felt he was ready to be the exec that Amazon MGM Studios’ creative teams reported directly to, and eliminate that layer between him and creative. The timing isn’t coincidental: It comes just days before CinemaCon, in which Amazon MGM Studios will present on the main stage for the first time to preview its theatrical slate. And Hopkins wants to be that messenger.
That’s why Salke isn’t being replaced, along with the cost savings that removes a presumably well-compensated studio chief. “Streamlining” is how Hopkins pitched it to reps around town on Thursday when he made calls to explain the move, and how TV (under Vernon Sanders) and film (led by Courtenay Valenti) would now both report to him.
More change could be afoot, however, as Hopkins noted in his memo to staffers, “we will be taking a couple of weeks to have thoughtful conversations with Jen’s directs and others to finalize the ideal long-term structure for the Amazon MGM Studios organization as a whole, and we’ll have more to share on that work soon.”
As for what’s next for Salke, sources around town noted that her new first-look production deal at Amazon actually sets her up for a new chapter that will somewhat free her from the creative constraints that come with answering to tech bosses. And, they note, the once-common practice of the production deal parachute is pretty rare these days, and the fact that Salke is still segueing comfortably to this new role is perhaps a testament to the impact that she had in making Amazon a true Hollywood player.
Hopkins gave that list in his memo: “’The Rings of Power,’ ‘Fallout,’ ‘Reacher,’ ‘Red One,’ ‘Maxton Hall,’ ‘The Idea of You,’ ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ ‘Saltburn,’ ‘Road House,’ ‘Beast Games,’ ‘Culpa Mia/Tuya’ and others speak to the hits under her leadership that have stirred cultural conversation and delivered incredible storytelling to worldwide audiences…and that list covers only the past 18 months,” he wrote. Indeed, given her impressive track record at Amazon, sources at program suppliers say they hope Salke’s exit isn’t an indication that creativity is taking a backseat at the streaming behemoth.
Salke has also been lauded for her aggressive push in putting more female voices and talent on the screen. “When I got to Amazon, I felt we were doing great with what everyone calls the ‘Jacks’ — “Jack Ryan,” Jack “Reacher” — we were getting the men,” she said during that SXSW session. “And we really felt as especially a female leadership team.. for us it’s about representing the audience. And I felt like we weren’t really doing a good job creative an addictive destination for women… this team put together an amazing slate geared toward women, while not abandoning our ‘dad TV.’ So fingers crossed women come in droves, and we make even more content in film and TV for women.”
As a producer, Salke will continue to have that chance to do so — and perhaps, in leaving after a productive seven years at Amazon, that should give her a quantum of solace.
