Jennifer Salke, head of Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, is stepping down from her position after seven years. Salke will move into a producing deal at Amazon and will not be replaced, Courtenay Valenti will continue to oversee film while Vernon Sanders will remain atop television.

The change was a surprise to insiders, including one group prepping a presentation at CinemaCon where Salke was due to introduce the company’s slate of coming films.

Salke had some successes at Amazon, including the series Reacher, which is top of the Nielsen streaming charts, and video game adaptation Fallout, which is currently shooting its second season. According to Nielsen, Prime Video is the third-most-watched streaming service, accounting for a 3.5 percent of total US television watching in February, below Netflix at 8.2 per cent and Disney at 4.8 per cent.

There were also films picked up in ‘turnaround’ in the pandemic in 2020, like the sequel to Borat, and turned them into streaming hits. Original productions like Air, Saltburn and Roadhouse followed.

But there were also misses. On the television side,  Salke spent $300 million on an ambitious espionage series from the Russo brothers, Citadel, Which failed to impress critics or audiences.

There was also The Lord of the Rings: The Rings Of Power where she spent $250 million on the rights alone. The first season of the fantasy series then cost $465 million to produce, yet didn’t become the hit they would had hoped.

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Tags: Amazon, Jennifer Salke, MGM, Prime Video