On Tuesday, Amazon MGM Studios introduced that producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman would produce the corporate’s upcoming James Bond movie. However in hindsight, the press launch was maybe simply as noticeable for what it didn’t embody: A quote from Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke. As a substitute, it was head of movie Courtenay Valenti who introduced the deal.

Hollywood was maybe shaken, however not stirred, by this week’s information that Salke has exited after seven years at Amazon — and the way James Bond was maybe among the many points that result in her departure. Speak of Salke’s departure amid an influence battle with Mike Hopkins, the pinnacle of Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, had been swirling for some time — and final month’s deal placing the Bond IP into the artistic palms of Amazon was an extra sign 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 destiny of the franchise from the second that Amazon acquired MGM — together with that helpful property — for $8.5 billion in 2022. It was Hopkins, a non-creative exec who has been Salke’s boss since becoming a member of Amazon in 2020, who as a substitute had been growing rapprochement with the Broccolis.

As Selection lately famous, Broccoli is believed to have instructed others that she didn’t really feel impressed by working with Salke. Issues got here to a head when the WSJ  printed an article in December concerning the Bond standstill. That trigger a excessive alert throughout the studio that Salke’s relationship on the movie facet was missing and that she didn’t have the artistic chops to land the aircraft on one of many largest franchises in Hollywood historical past. (It additionally helped to speed up to Amazon’s deal to purchase out the Broccolis, after negotiations started in early 2024.)

Sources mentioned Salke wished to make Bond right into a broader, much less harmful character who may star in TV exhibits and carry video video games. However her need to make 007 right into a cuddly hero for Center America made Broccoli wince, based on a number of sources. Insiders snarked that Salke’s imaginative and prescient of Bond advised him as a rebellious cookie-cutter spy out of an NBC drama, not severe IP that solely a handful of probably the most esteemed administrators may sort out.

Final month, Broccoli and her half-brother, Michael Wilson, finally signed off on that deal giving Amazon management of the franchise — however maybe additionally they had a touch that the construction inside the corporate was about to vary.

Salke has lengthy had a popularity for possessing an sharp eye for artistic expertise. It’s what saved her in place for seven years because the artistic chief for a tech firm recognized extra without spending a dime delivery than free expression.

However at Amazon, it was turning into clear that the world was not sufficient for Hopkins — and that hypothesis was already within the air when he introduced in a memo to staffers Thursday that Salke can be shifting on from her job right into a first-look manufacturing deal.

Expertise, after all, was seen as Hopkins’ weak hyperlink in what has in any other case been an ever-growing checklist of accomplishments since arriving on the tech behemoth. But when Salke couldn’t make it work with what’s finally now seen as a very powerful model to use within the Amazon MGM universe, then that was the ultimate straw vital for Hopkins to make his transfer.

Diamonds could also be eternally, however these jobs are usually not — and Salke’s James Bond drawback might have been the last word impetuous for her departure, nevertheless it wasn’t the one motive. Certain, for Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, founder Jeff Bezos and the Seattle administration crew, expertise is enjoyable and Hollywood is sweet. However that’s not the underside line. And whereas the vagaries of Hollywood means Salke and her crew are spending large bucks on swings that don’t all the time work, Hopkins has been profitable followers up north for rising Prime Video’s dwell sports activities enterprise, increasing its worldwide attain and bolstering Amazon Channels subscriptions. Most lately, Hopkins’ scored an enormous victory by bringing Apple TV+ to Prime Video as an add-on. For Seattle, sealing offers like that’s the place the cash’s at.

The connection between Hopkins and Salke was all the time tenuous — nevertheless it labored for a time as a result of Salke has the artistic items, one thing a button-down swimsuit like Hopkins, even along with his earlier stints at Sony Footage TV, Hulu and Fox Networks Group, lacked. She took what was an embattled streamer doing area of interest, indie-style TV — and struggling to get well following sexual harassment allegations in opposition to its then-head, Roy Value — and turned it into an enormous, mainstream participant programming each broad procedurals like “Bosch” and sci-fi sequence with stunning awards cache corresponding to “The Boys” and “Fallout.” She additionally managed to navigate Bezos’ private obsession, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy,” which along with his blessing turned the most costly TV sequence in historical past (costing greater than $1 billion).

“The Rings of Energy” did positive, though whether or not it was price it is going to be eternally debated — not that it issues, so long as Bezos is comfortable. It was Amazon’s subsequent large price range stab at creating an enormous, international universe, the Russo brothers’ “Citadel,” that everybody’s nonetheless speaking about, and what may have turned the tide in opposition to Salke in Hopkins’ universe.

Thought of the second most-expensive sequence of all time (with a price range that ballooned as a consequence of reshoots), the thought appeared nice on paper: A giant spy motion sequence (starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden) that may then be supported by spinoffs in territories all over the world. Up to now, the mothership aired in 2023 and has been renewed for a Season 2, whereas follow-up Italian (“Citadel: Diana”) and Indian (“Citadel: Honey Bunny”) editions have aired. However it’s most actually not the popular culture phenomenon that Amazon was anticipating, and there’s no signal if or when any of these follow-ups will ever see the sunshine of day.

Throughout a SXSW panel earlier this month hosted by MPA chief Charlie Rivkin, Salke addressed the steadiness between taking artistic dangers however being conscious of budgets: “Inventive conviction actually guidelines the foundations the day, however it’s a must to be proper quite a bit, which is one other Amazon precept,” she mentioned. “So for those who obtained loads of conviction and also you’re mistaken on a regular basis, I don’t suppose we’d be sitting in our jobs very lengthy. You may be mistaken typically, although, since you need to embrace threat.”

In accordance with discuss round Hollywood, with the ROI low on many big-budget Amazon initiatives, Hopkins had taken away greenlight energy from Salke final 12 months. Then got here the current shakeup with Bond.

And with that, Hopkins most likely felt he was able to be the exec that Amazon MGM Studios’ artistic groups reported on to, and remove that layer between him and artistic. The timing isn’t coincidental: It comes simply days earlier than CinemaCon, wherein Amazon MGM Studios will current on the primary stage for the primary time to preview its theatrical slate. And Hopkins needs to be that messenger.

That’s why Salke isn’t being changed, together with the fee financial savings that removes a presumably well-compensated studio chief. “Streamlining” is how Hopkins pitched it to reps round city on Thursday when he made calls to elucidate the transfer, and the way TV (underneath Vernon Sanders) and movie (led by Courtenay Valenti) would now each report back to him.

Extra change may very well be afoot, nevertheless, as Hopkins famous in his memo to staffers, “we shall be taking a few weeks to have considerate conversations with Jen’s directs and others to finalize the perfect long-term construction for the Amazon MGM Studios group as a complete, and we’ll have extra to share on that work quickly.”

As for what’s subsequent for Salke, sources round city famous that her new first-look manufacturing deal at Amazon truly units her up for a brand new chapter that can considerably free her from the artistic constraints that include answering to tech bosses. And, they be aware, the once-common observe of the manufacturing deal parachute is fairly uncommon as of late, and the truth that Salke continues to be segueing comfortably to this new position is maybe a testomony to the impression that she had in making Amazon a real Hollywood participant.

Hopkins gave that checklist in his memo: “’The Rings of Energy,’ ‘Fallout,’ ‘Reacher,’ ‘Pink One,’ ‘Maxton Corridor,’ ‘The Concept of You,’ ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ ‘Saltburn,’ ‘Street Home,’ ‘Beast Video games,’ ‘Culpa Mia/Tuya’ and others converse to the hits underneath her management which have stirred cultural dialog and delivered unimaginable storytelling to worldwide audiences…and that checklist covers solely the previous 18 months,” he wrote. Certainly, given her spectacular observe report at Amazon, sources at program suppliers say they hope Salke’s exit isn’t a sign that creativity is taking a backseat.

Salke has additionally been lauded for her aggressive push in placing extra feminine voices and expertise on the display screen. “Once I obtained to Amazon, I felt we have been doing nice with what everybody calls the ‘Jacks’ — “Jack Ryan,” Jack “Reacher” — we have been getting the lads,” she mentioned throughout that SXSW session. “And we actually felt as particularly a feminine management crew.. for us it’s about representing the viewers. And I felt like we weren’t actually doing an excellent job artistic an addictive vacation spot for ladies… this crew put collectively an incredible slate geared towards ladies, whereas not abandoning our ‘dad TV.’ So fingers crossed ladies are available in droves, and we make much more content material in movie and TV for ladies.”

As a producer, Salke will proceed to have that probability to take action — and maybe, in leaving after a productive seven years at Amazon, that ought to give her a quantum of solace.