Screen Gems President Steve Bersch To Step Down After 16 Years At Sony
15.09.2023 - 20:57
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: After nearly 16 years on the Culver City, CA lot, Steve Bersch, President of Screen Gems, is departing Sony when his contract ends on Dec. 1.
We understand it’s a very amicable exit, and that the executive, who is going out on a high note with the highest grossing horror movie of the year, Insidious: The Red Door ($188.5M), is eyeing other pursuits after a long career in the motion picture business. As Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group CEO and Chairman Tom Rothman says in his note to staff below, he tried to convince Bersch to stay.
Deadline also understands that Scott Strauss, EVP of Production for Screen Gems, will also be exiting when Bersch departs.
That box office result for Insidious: Red Door also repped the record for the $730M grossing franchise, one which Bersch has been with since Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group bought North American rights to the first Insidious (which was made for a reported $900K) at 2010’s TIFF Midnight Madness as Deadline first reported. That’s when Bersch was President of Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquistions, a position he landed upon joining Sony in 2008 from Fox.
Among the movies Bersch worked on with Sony were the horror hit Don’t Breathe ($157.7M WW), Oscar-winning Arrival, which he snapped up foreign on (minting $102.8M overseas to $100.5M domestic); the Searching and Missing indie thrillers (combined global of $124M+); Tom Hanks WWII movie Greyhound which premiered on Apple TV+ and the actor’s dramedy A Man Called Otto which was a bright spot at the winter B.O. for older demos earning $64.2M domestic, $113M-plus worldwide.
Bersch added the title of President, Screen Gems to his oversee in 2018 after Clint Culpepper departed the genre
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