Tom Rothman replaces Amy Pascal as Sony Pictures Chairman

Tom Rothman the previous Chief at Fox Films Entertainment will replace Amy Pascal as the Chairman of the Sony Motion Pictures Group.

The news of Tom Rothman’s appointment as Chairman of Sony Pictures was officially announced on Tuesday the 24th of February 2015, less than 3 weeks after the notorious resignation of previous chairman Amy Pascal. Tom Rothman was previously the Fox Films Entertainment Chief since the year 2000 until 2012.

60-year-old head of the entertainment division had been in collaboration with the Sony Pictures company since a long time as he took over the working reigns of Sony Pictures TriStar Pictures label in 2013. Being a part of the TriStar Pictures label allowed Rothman interactions with the Sony executives while in Culver City and they developed an amicable professional zone.

According to inside sources, the recruitment of Rothman for the post of Chairman took place very privately with no one the wiser and quite swiftly b the top executives. The selection was finally approved by Executive Chief of Sony Pictures Entertainment Michael Lynton, who pondered over the decision last weekend but in the end gave his consent for the move. The key point in Rothman’s appointment and Lynton’s finalizing decision was the fact that Rothman previously had experience of having run a very successful studio.

Rothman was employed for the position after he had a meeting with Kazuo ‘Kaz’ Hirai the CEO of the parent company Sony Corp and in his statement Tom Rothman shared he came out of the meeting with Sony fully convinced he would be receiving all the support required and the studio is committed to do work for the long term. Rothman further elaborated he has had the benefit of working with Sony for a year and knows and likes everyone on the Sony team very well. 

Rothman has a reputation for being tough and major emphasis on keeping costs in check at his previous studio Fox and such an attitude did not make him a favorite with many people. Although Rothman is known for having supervised and approved such movies they received a total of 150 Oscar nominations and made the Fox studio about $40 Billion at the box office in revenues. Currently at TriStar Rothman was working on some modest budget adult oriented drama flicks, with top notch actors such as Julia Roberts and George Clooney involved in the movie projects. 

The previous Chairman Amy Pascal resigned as a result of a vicious internet hack by the North Korean authorities against the Sony pictures for releasing the satire film ‘The Interview’ about the assassination of Kim Jong-un. The hack revealed many personal emails from the Sony executives to the world but none of the emails were as infamous as those discovered to be penned by of Amy Pascal.

Pascal in her personal emails wrote mean and vicious comments regarding stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie, even going as far as to insult their talent. Following the scandal Amy Pascal gave in her resignation and will be leaving the company in /4/2015, but until then she will help Rothman familiarize on handling the Sony Entertainment Group projects.

As chairman Tom Rothman’s job will be quiet challenging as he will be handling all the Sony Picture Units such as TriStar, Sony Animation, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics and Studio 8. However Rothman claims the challenge is part of what attracted him to the job.