The idea of executives being brought in to cut costs is a cringeworthy notion to me. While keeping cost under control and cutting waste where needed should be part of the business plan for all companies (look no further than the mid nineties when Steve Jobs returned to Apple), by itself, the initiative will only lead to a dead end if growth itself cannot be stimulated. We need not look further than Sony Electronics who has been cutting divisions and staff left and right but still hasn’t seen a meaningful profit in over a decade.

So who the heck is Tom Rothman and why is he heading Sony Pictures? Let’s talk.

In a surprise move, Sony has appointed Tom Rothman to head Sony Pictures where he’ll replace the ousted Amy Pascal. Many had previously thought that Sony would appoint Doug Belgrad, the well-liked motion picture group president. Given the blessing of Sony CEO Kaz Hirai, Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton (who also just had his contract renewed) had been quietly negotiating with Rothman whose previous experience includes co-running Fox Filmed Entertainment.

During his time at Fox, Rothman is attributed with turning out hits like Avatar, Titanic, and the X-Men series. That latter flick is an important one, but we’ll get back to that in a minute. Other acolytes for Rothman include $40 billion at the box office and 150 Academy Award nominations for Fox.

Tom Rothman:

 Really what it is, is sculpting the financial risk to the potential creative upside. You need to be financially prudent, but creatively ambitious. 

Besides turning out hits for Fox, Rothman is also known for his cost-cutting measures which Sony hopes to use to help boost studio profits. In the past, Rothman has been a hard hitter at the negotiation table and aggressively pursued actors and directors to cut their fees. Some of this has cause rifts between the executives and talent like Will Smith and Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Chappie) who left Fox for Sony and vowed to never to never work with the studio. Now Rothman will have to make nice with the in-house talent.

Lynton also believes that Rothman will be able to help Sony establish new franchises and compete with top studios like Disney and WB who own Marvel and DC, respectively. Thanks to the ownership of said comic book publications, the two studios are able to pump out a near endless amount of well-liked films while Sony has had to give some of its ownership of Spider-Man to Disney in order to get some help with the famous superheroes future films.

In  2014, Sony Pictures finished in fourth place with a 12.2% share of the box office, just behind 20th Century Fox at 17.3%. Still, with movies being multi-year projects, the impact of the appointment won’t be known for some time to come.

Discuss:

Do you think Rothman is the right man for head of Sony Pictures?

[Via Variety]