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…

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…

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…

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…

EXCLUSIVE: Julie Rapaport has just left The Weinstein Company after seven years there to take an executive post at Amazon Studios. Rapaport, who quickly grew into a sharp production executive, was hired by Ted Hope to be an exec in production and programming for the streaming service, and she will help with its…

As had been widely expected — and reported — Amazon has now confirmed that Spike Lee’s Chi-raq will be its first original movie. Chi-Raq will feature Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, D.B. Sweeney, Harry Lennix, Steve Harris, Angela Basset with John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. Teyonah Parris will play the…

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studios is making its first big move into film acquisitions by acquiring domestic rights to Elvis & Nixon for close to $4 million. Deal is in the advanced stages of closing. Amazon will team up with Bleecker Street, who will handle the film’s release. The film will have a theatrical bow as part of…

Amazon Studios today announced what Deadline told our readers on January 7: that veteran independent producer Ted Hope would steer it  into original feature film productions. Hope had been atop Fandor, and he left that post earlier this month. The long-expected move by Amazon into this business comes after it took home…

As lead investor and former Facebook General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly today stepped in as interim head of the curated film streaming service Fandor after CEO Ted Hope left for another gig, speculation is building on where Hope will go next. We’re hearing it might be a top post at Amazon Studios…

Ted Hope partnered with James Schamus and David Linde in Good Machine, the prolific director-centric indie company behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Y Tu Mama Tambien, In The Bedroom, Brokeback Mountain, Happiness, The Ice Storm and The Brothers McMullen. In this excerpt from his new book Hope For Film (Soft…

Four months after indie film veteran Ted Hope exited as head of the San Francisco Film Society after a year at the helm, Noah Cowan has been named to the post. Cowan most recently spent five years leading the Toronto International Film Festival Bell Lightbox as its founding Artistic Director. He’s also programmed TIFF…

BREAKING: Ted Hope, the veteran independent producer who took a sabbatical to run the San Francisco Film Society, has resurfaced in a new gig. He starts at the end of the month as CEO of Fandor, a subscription service that hopes to do for festival and foreign films what Netflix does for mainstream films and TV series…