15:42 PST 2/8/2021
in
Natalie Jarvey
,
The new CEO, Andy Jassy, is unlikely to make any major changes to the studio – but he has built ties with Hollywood while running the technology giant’s Web services division.
You will have to forgive anyone in Hollywood whose response to the February 2 news that Andy Jassy will replace Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s CEO was, “Who?”
A life on Amazon, Jassy has spent nearly two decades running the highly profitable cloud computing division of Seattle’s e-commerce giant, a role that would hardly put him in a position to rub elbows with the creatives who made movies and TV shows for Amazon. Studios. But Jassy’s appointment as CEO, which will take place during the third quarter, when Bezos becomes chief executive, is expected to have little impact on the company’s entertainment business, Amazon sources say.
“One of the great brands in Hollywood is when you have a new leader coming in, there is a complete change in the guard. This is not the way of Amazon, ”says Bill Carr, former Amazon vp digital media, who oversaw Prime Video and Amazon Studios in his early days and is co-author of the next book Working backwards: Amazon insights, stories and secrets.
WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, who worked with Bezos in the early days of Amazon, calls his former boss “one of the most talented and effective business teachers this planet has to offer, for those who want to listen and learn”. Jassy is among the executives who took advantage of these teachings. He spent a year and a half accompanying the billionaire founder of Amazon before founding Amazon Web Services, which he transformed into a data hosting company with $ 45 billion in sales in 2020.
Anyone who knows the two executives well says that Jassy is not expected to deviate much from the course charted by Bezos. Where Jassy may differ more than Bezos is in his personal interests.
It was Bezos’ passion for entertainment – not to mention his desire to attract more subscribers to Amazon’s Prime subscription – that led the company to launch the entertainment arm Amazon Studios in 2010. In the following years, Bezos – who has long maintained a home in Los Angeles and bought David Geffen’s Warner Estate for $ 165 million in 2020 – it has become a constant presence at award shows. “Jeff has been a huge supporter and supporter of Amazon Studios’ efforts and very interested in his progress, and this is useful,” said Tom Wellington, co-director of television at WME. “What Jeff’s interest allowed is for Prime Video and Amazon Studios to get some space in Amazonian culture to do things in ways that work more for Hollywood.”
Still, Bezos has been relatively relaxed when it comes to programming. He does not attend pitch meetings. Instead, executives at Amazon Studios, led by Jennifer Salke, travel to Seattle to present him with his green decisions. “I would never say no to something the team wanted to do, but I could say yes to something the team didn’t want to do,” explained Bezos to THR in a 2015 interview.
Sources say there have been some projects in which Bezos has taken a more active role, including Amazon’s $ 250 million deal for the rights of JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings which included a five-season commitment to a TV series based on fantasy novels. Bezos’ personal interest in the space scene The Expanse it is also said to have played a role in Amazon’s decision to revive the series after its cancellation on SyFy. (In a rare move, Bezos revealed the launch of Amazon Studios’s fourth season of The Expanse during an appearance in 2018 at a National Space Society conference.)
People close to Jassy, for their part, describe him as having a thing for sports – he is a fan of the New York Giants and co-owner of the professional hockey team Seattle Kraken – and music, reported for running bands in his youth . A person who knows Jassy well says that he is unlikely to meddle in the creation of an Amazon Studios project, but has media knowledge to be an ally of the company’s entertainment partners.
That’s what he did as CEO of AWS, which offers a set of media service products that have become part of the essential video streaming backbone. Walt Disney Co., Netflix, Comcast and NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, Sony, Fox Corp. ViacomCBS, Discovery Inc. and MGM are all customers of Amazon’s Jassy realm and use AWS to run their streaming services. Jassy is known for occasionally engaging in high-level conversations between AWS and its customers, whether to help close a deal or resolve a difficult point.
While Amazon’s entertainment business is an important part of the business, Jassy is not expected to be among Jassy’s top priorities as CEO, a role he is taking on as the $ 1.7 trillion company faces further regulatory scrutiny. The Amazon Studios division has a $ 7 billion content budget, but the company does not disclose its operating income or profit. After all, programs like Jack Ryan and The boys aim to help Amazon ensure that its more than 150 million Prime subscribers continue to renew their memberships.
Salke projected confidence about the future of the LA outpost amid the change of CEO on the morning of the Golden Globes, February 3. After the studio got 10 nominations, she said THR that Bezos remains “a big fan of our business”.
Even after Jassy took over the reins of Amazon, Carr says it would be a waste of time for Hollywood to roll out the red carpet: “I would be very surprised if Andy starts putting his hand firmly at the helm of directing Amazon Studios’ artistic direction and pondering on specific green light decisions. “
Alex Weprin contributed to this report.