Paramount Exec Ashley Brucks Lands Top Job At Screen Gems – The Dish Update

Anthony D'Alessandro and Justin Kroll
·3 min read

Update: As we previously told you, Paramount EVP Ashley Brucks has landed the top job at Screen Gems.

She starts Nov. 13.

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Here’s the note from Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group Presidents, Josh Greenstein and Sanford Panitch.

Dear colleagues,

While the trades were premature in reporting this, we are excited to let you know that starting November 13, Ashley Brucks will join the Motion Picture Group as President, Screen Gems, guiding production for our genre label.

Ashley has overseen some of the most successful genre films in recent years. She most recently served as Senior EVP and Head of Development at Paramount Players. Over her nearly 15-year tenure at Paramount, she brought in the original Paranormal Activity and went on to oversee all seven installments in the nearly billion-dollar franchise. Ashley also oversaw the critically acclaimed box office hits A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II, along with Scream and Scream VI, The Lost City, and sleeper hits Crawl and Pet Sematary. She began her film career at DreamWorks.

We are thrilled to embark on this new chapter with Ashley and have confidence that her leadership will shape a great future for Screen Gems. Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Ashley when she starts.

As you all know, Screen Gems is just one part of Steve Bersch’s portfolio, and he will be here until December 1 helping with the transitions across his many operations.

Josh and Sanford

EXCLUSIVE, Sept 21, 7:10PM: We are hearing that the top job at Screen Gems, which is being vacated by Steve Bersch, is poised to go to Paramount EVP Ashley Brucks.

Again, with all these exec talks, put an asterisk on this in case things falls apart, but we hear Brucks is the top choice. She’s been involved with such Paramount horror franchise hits as Scream, A Quiet Place and Paranormal Activity.

Recently, Scream VI at close to $169M became the third-highest-grossing movie in the Dimension/Spyglass franchise worldwide, but it also had the biggest global opening ever for the series at $67M. A Quiet Place, with a global franchise gross of $638.2M from two movies, speaks for itself — a beefy cash cow. The spinoff A Quiet Place: Day One is expected to hit theaters on March 8. For a label like Screen Gems, which is looking to revive itself, Brucks will come in quite handy.

We are told that Sony has been interviewing candidates since June to lead its genre division, which recently hit a home run with this year’s highest-grossing horror movie, Insidious: The Red Door ($188.5M), also the highest-grossing in the Blumhouse franchise. Bersch was key in landing the Insidious franchise for Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions out of TIFF Midnight Madness back in 2010.

As we first told you, Bersch’s departure, set for the end of the year, was extremely amicable, with Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group CEO and Chairman Tom Rothman championing the former Fox vet to stay on the Culver City lot. Scott Strauss, EVP Production at Screen Gems, also is exiting when Bersch departs. It remains to be seen if Bersch’s and Brucks’ time will coincide at Screen Gems.

When Paramount Players was merged under Paramount Motion Picture Group early last year under co-heads Mike Ireland and Daria Cercek, Brucks, previously SEVP Production at the studio, became Head of Development at Paramount Players.

Brucks is 15-year vet of Paramount Pictures. She began her career at DreamWorks as a production and development executive.

We’ll let you know when this all becomes official.

Sony did not respond for request to comment.

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