Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group President Emma Watts has hired former 20th Century Studios executive Jeremy Kramer as president of Paramount Players, Variety reports.
The news follows reports earlier this month that Kramer was circling the post. Paramount Players was created as a genre label by Brian Robbins, the founder and former CEO of AwesomenessTV. Robbins left the studio to run Nickelodeon in 2018.
The hiring of Kramer, who will report to Watts, was announced Tuesday, October 20. He will oversee the films made under the Paramount Players label, which has the task of creating genre films from “unique, contemporary” voices and properties. Ashley Brucks, who previously served as executive vice president of production for Paramount Pictures, will be moving to Paramount Players as senior executive vice president of production.
“Jeremy has a proven track record of nurturing talent, both established and new, supporting their vision and helping them execute at the highest level — from Let’s Be Cops to Kingsman to Deadpool,” Watts said. “There’s isn’t a movie that he’s worked on that he hasn’t made better. The challenges of ensuring that Paramount Players grows and addresses the demands of our various audiences are formidable and we know that Jeremy is up to this task and we welcome him to our team.”
Kramer began his career as an independent producer producing Noah Baumbach’s directorial debut Kicking and Screaming in 1995. His career started at MPCA and Orion, then in 1998 he became senior vice president of production at Miramax Films. In 2004 joined DreamWorks, where he worked closely with Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld’s Red Hour Films.
Kramer returned to producing as a partner at Red Hour. In 2010, Watts brought Kramer back into the studio world as an executive vice president of production at 20th Century Fox. During his career, Kramer has overseen more than 50 films including She’s All That, Blades of Glory, Disturbia, Tropic Thunder, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, both Deadpool movies and most recently, the latest installment of the Kingsman franchise.
Kramer also spearheaded Fox’s first projects produced for streaming services, including the Lil Rel Howery and John Cena comedy Vacation Friends for Hulu, as well as Home Alone for Disney Plus.
“My years working with Emma and Jim [Gianopulos, Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures] at Fox were some of the most enjoyable and rewarding days I’ve had in the film business, and I am fortunate and excited to make movies with them again,” says Kramer. “We’re excited to build a slate of commercial movies that will empower new voices and experienced filmmakers to deliver the original movies that audiences crave.”
Bruck developed and oversaw A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II. She also oversaw the remake of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary and Alex Aja’s Crawl. She was the studio executive who founded, championed and oversaw the micro-budgeted Paranormal Activity franchise. Currently, she is supervising for Paramount the latest chapter in the Scream series, as well as The Lost City of D, starring Sandra Bullock, and the big screen musical adaptation of Mean Girls.
Launched in 2017, Paramount Players has a mandate to develop and produce features in conjunction with ViacomCBS-owned brands such as Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and BET. Films from the Paramount Players label so far include Dora and the Lost City of Gold, based on Nickelodeon's beloved animated preschool series Dora the Explorer, Playing With Fire starring John Cena, What Men Want, Body Cam. A live-action/CGI-hybrid Rugrats movie was also in the works, but has since been shelved. The label was also slated to revive and produce a theatrical version of Nickelodeon's fan-favorite horror anthology series Are You Afraid of the Dark?, however, Nickelodeon later decided that the revival would work better as a TV miniseries, which was renewed for a second season earlier this year.
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