Amazon Ups Julie Rapaport To Co-Head Of Movies As Studio Looks To Build Wide Audience Feature Slate

Amazon Studios has promoted Julie Rapaport to Co-Head of Movies in which she’ll lead a new division that will focus on building a slate of movies geared toward wider audiences. While Amazon Studios vice president WW head of motion pictures Jason Ropell exited this summer, we understand Amazon is still looking for a replacement for him.

Rapaport will oversee a slate of pics with larger budgets, keeping in Amazon’s wheelhouse for singular cinematic voices.

Upcoming projects for the new division include the Aaron Sorkin-scripted Lucille Ball feature Lucy and Desi, and Union scripted by Robert Schenkkan, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt attached to produce, about the head of the post-Civil War infantry tasked with fighting the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

In her job as Senior Manager, Development, Production and Acquisitions, Rapaport co-managed the team under co-head Ted Hope and was responsible for overseeing the upcoming Beautiful Boy starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet, as well as Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying and Mike White’s Brad’s Status. Previously, Rapaport served as SVP of Production and Development at Weinstein Co. where she was behind such noteworthy fare as Lion, Silver Linings Playbook, Big Eyes and August: Osage County.

In her new role, Rapaport will work alongside fellow Co-Heads Ted Hope and Matt Newman, with all three reporting to Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios.

“Keeping in mind the diverse range of tastes of our Prime Video customers, we are focused on continually expanding our content offerings,” said Salke. “I want to stress that across series and movies, all divisions hold quality first and foremost as their bar. With Julie joining Ted and Matt, this clears the pathway to further expand our robust movies slate to include more widely engaging stories that audiences will connect with. Julie is a talented and highly respected creative executive and leader and we are thrilled to see her step into this expansive role.”

Rapaport commented: “I am extremely excited to take on this new role, working alongside Jennifer Salke, Ted Hope, Matt Newman and the entire Movies team as we continue to build Amazon Studios into the destination for high-quality content from first-class talent. Every filmmaker and film lover starts as a filmgoer, and Amazon Studios lives in that rich history. My passion is to tell stories and make films that enchant, engage and entertain audiences, and I love doing that here at Amazon. We have amazing projects in the pipeline with even more yet to come.”

Hope will continue to oversee the prestige titles from emerging filmmakers and established auteurs.

He added: “Having worked with Julie for many years, I know she is a superstar. I am very happy and am confident she will shine in her new role. Our carefully curated slate of auteur-driven projects is something that has always made each day a joy and truly exciting, our teams and I are thrilled to bring them to the big screen.”

Upcoming for Amazon is Beautiful Boy on Oct. 12, Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria on Oct. 26 and Pawel Palikowski’s Cold War, which recently was selected as Poland’s official entry for Best Foreign Film. Since last December, Amazon has been distributing movies on their own sans distribution partners.