MGM marketing chief Michael Vollman exiting
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With barely any movies to market since he joined the company three years ago or for the foreseeable future, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer marketing head Michael Vollman is leaving the company.
Vollman, the studio’s executive vice president of theatrical marketing, will depart when his contract expires in mid-August, a spokeswoman for the studio confirmed. He does not have a new position lined up.
MGM’s financial woes led the studio to wind down its film business by late 2008, leaving Vollman, like many of his fellow executives, with little to do. It released only one movie in 2009, ‘Fame,’ and another the next year, ‘Hot Tub Time Machine.’
Through at least 2012, MGM’s motion picture business will consist primarily of co-financing movies that will be released domestically by other studios, such as the next James Bond picture and ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ with Sony Pictures and two Hobbit films with Warner Bros. That will leave little for a head of theatrical marketing at MGM to do.
Vollman was one of a handful of senior executives who stayed on after MGM emerged from bankruptcy in December under new chief executives Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum. Since then the company has laid off nearly 100 employees and hired several executives.
“Michael Vollman is a great executive. We could not have gotten through this enormous transition over the past 7 months without his clarity, his guidance and his commitment,’ Barber and Birnbaum said in a statement. ‘While his contract is ending, we are confident that our paths will cross again.’
Before joining MGM in 2008 he worked in marketing at Paramount Pictures for two years and at DreamWorks Studios for a decade.
Related:
MGM to co-finance Sony’s ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’
Sony and MGM finalize James Bond, co-financing partnership
Lion ready to roar again as MGM restructuring gets final court go-ahead
— Ben Fritz