Latest in Jason Ropell

BREAKING: Jason Ropell has stepped down from the leadership of Amazon Studios, where he has been vice president WW head of motion pictures for three of the six years he has spent there. The exit is amicable, and Ropell took the action basically after Amazon chief Jennifer Salke told him that she wanted to take the…

While Amazon Studios under new leader Jennifer Salke has come out swinging on the TV front, growth on the feature film front will continue to stress quality over volume. Expansion will come as will overall deals with talent, but there is no ambition to compete with the booming film slate of Netflix. In an interview…

EXCLUSIVE: In what will come as a relief to sellers arriving here at Sundance, Amazon Studios’ Worldwide Film Head Jason Ropell is debunking a Reuters report this morning that inferred the company is essentially bailing on the indie film space. Such a development would seem bizarre, considering that in the last couple…

EXCLUSIVE: In one of the year’s biggest acquisition deals, Amazon Studios has made a $10 million-plus deal for U.S. rights to Life, Itself, a drama directed and written by This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman. The completed film is a multi-generational love story, weaving together a number of characters whose lives…

It's been a good year for Amazon Studios. The company has proved its worth as a major player in the independent film market thanks to the critical and box office success of Manchester by the Sea, which it picked up in Sundance last year for $10 million before steering it to Oscar success in the Best Actor and…

Jason Ropell, VP Worldwide Motion Pictures at Amazon Studios, told CinemaCon attendees during the streaming service’s afternoon luncheon that the company believes “in the theatrical window fully for our releases.” “I have a very vivid memory of being here last year at CinemaCon … our team was brand new,” he said. “We…

Changes in how movies get to movie fans won’t come anytime soon and not in one solid package, a trio of Hollywood insiders said today. "It's the innovator's dilemma," Benjamin Mogil, Stifel Nicolaus’ Managing Director Equity Research, Media and Entertainment, told LA Film Czar Ken Ziffren today during UCLA Law…

Earlier today Amazon saw five of its films included in the Official Selection for the Cannes Film Festival, so execs had plenty to crow about at the company’s CinemaCon luncheon. Head of marketing and distribution Bob Berney beamed about Amazon’s upcoming date with the Croisette, including Woody Allen’s Cafe Society…