Update: January 9, 2018
Sue Kroll Axed as WB's Marketing Head, Toby Emmerich Promoted to WB Chairman
As Warner Bros. shakes up its top executive ranks, Sue Kroll is stepping down as the president of worldwide marketing and distribution, while Toby Emmerich has been named chairman of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group with full oversight of worldwide theatrical production, marketing and distribution.
As part of Warners' reorganization, Blair Rich will head global theatrical and home entertainment marketing as president, worldwide marketing, Warner Bros. Pictures Group and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Ron Sanders will serve as president, worldwide distribution, Warner Bros. Pitures Group, assuming responsibility for global theatrical distribution while retaining his role as president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
In a memo to staff, Tsujihara noted that the restructuring is meant to make the studio "more competitive in the global marketplace."
Kroll has had one of the longest tenures in Hollywood of any female executive, having been at the studio for 24 years. She will become a studio-based producer at Warners with offices in the Jack Warner bungalow. Kroll will be attached as producer to the upcoming films
A Star Is Born and
Motherless Brooklyn when she moves into her new producing role on April 1.
Until then, Kroll will work with Tsujihara as a special advisor on the restructuring of the studio's film and home entertainment divisions. She also will continue to oversee awards campaigns for
Dunkirk and
Wonder Woman as well as advise on select studio releases such as Steven Spielberg's
Ready Player One, which will be released in March.
Emmerich and Kroll, along with Greg Silverman, were named to a triumvirate running the studio under Tsujihara in 2013, but now only Emmerich remains. In December 2016, Silverman was ousted as the studio's president of worldwide production and replaced with Emmerich, the then-head of New Line.
In June 2016, Kroll extended her contract with the Burbank-based studio in a multiyear deal. She originally joined Warner Bros. in 1994 and has been one of the film division’s senior-most marketing executives for nearly two decades, serving first as senior vp, international marketing and then president, international marketing, from 2000-2007.
In 2008, Kroll was elevated to president, worldwide marketing. and in 2013, she added responsibility for international distribution to her purview; in 2015, she was named president, worldwide marketing and distribution.
During Kroll's tenure, the film division has crossed the $1 billion mark domestically and internationally in each of the last 18 years; in 2009, Warner Bros. became the first major studio to cross $4 billion in a single year without the addition of secondary division’s receipts; and in 2013, Warner Bros. Pictures became only the second studio in history to cross $5 billion in global box office. Last year was the biggest year in the studio’s history, with $5.13 billion in global box office. But while Warners enjoyed major successes with
Wonder Woman and
It, its big superhero tentpoles
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and, most recently,
Justice League, underperformed in theaters.
Kroll was behind the campaigns for the studio's billion-dollar franchises like
Harry Potter and Christopher Nolan's
Dark Knight trilogy, and during her tenure the studio also won the best picture Oscar for
Argo and received best picture nominations for such films as
The Blind Side,
Inception,
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,
Gravity,
Her,
American Sniper and
Mad Max: Fury Road.
Warner Bros. Shake-Up: Sue Kroll Steps Down as Marketing Head, Toby Emmerich Promoted to WB Chairman
