Led by the worldwide box-office bounty provided by the animated feature Ice Age: The Meltdown, Twentieth Century Fox enjoyed its most profitable year to date in 2006, and now some execs who played key roles in that success have been promoted. Hutch Parker has risen to the post of vice chairman, overseeing both 20th Century Fox and Fox Animation. Vanessa Morrison will be the new president of Fox Animation, while at animation house Blue Sky Studio Brian Keane has been upped to chief operating officer and chief financial officer, and Bruce Anderson to general manager. In addition, Emma Watts and Alex Young have been appointed co-presidents of production at Fox.
“A central management tenet at Fox is that talented people get the chance to move up,’ say Fox Chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman. ‘We ourselves, and the majority of our senior staff, have benefited from this philosophy. We are gratified that these gifted executives now continue that tradition.’
Parker previously held the title of president of the 20th Century Fox division, which took in more than $2 billion dollars at the box office worldwide with movies released in 2006. He joined Fox in 1995 as senior VP of production, and was named president of production in 1999. His new responsibilities include overseeing Fox Animation, which will be run by new president Vanessa Morrison.
Morrison replaces Chris Meledandri, who left Fox to set up his own family entertainment shingle at Universal Pictures. A 12-year Fox production veteran, Morrison has supervised a number of CG-intensive and family-oriented films, including the Garfield, Dr. Doolittle and Cheaper by the Dozen series. The rest of the staff at Fox Animation, including VP John Cohen, will continue in their roles.
Over at Academy Award-winning Blue Sky Studios, general manager and chief financial officer Brian Keane will settle into his new position as chief operating officer, while continuing to serve as chief financial officer. Bruce Anderson, who is currently serving as an associate producer on Fox Animation’s Horton Hears a Who, will continue to work on the film as he takes on the duties of general manager for the studio.
Emma Watts and Alex Young respectively guided the vfx-heavy pics Night At the Museum and X-Men: The Last Stand to more than $400 million in worldwide box office receipts. As co-presidents of production for 20th Century Fox, they will report to Parker as they oversee a slate of upcoming films that includes Live Free or Die Hard and Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer.
In related news, Debbie Liebling has been promoted to president of production for Fox’s new genre label, Fox Atomic, reporting to Peter Rice. As exec VP of Production at Fox, she shepherded production of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, a low-budget film that has grossed more that $250 million worldwide on the road to an Oscar nomination. Liebling joined Fox in 2002 after serving as chief programming exec for Comedy Central’s original shows and co-producing for the feature film South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut. She has also worked as an exec at MTV and at Nickelodeon.
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