Last week, reports indicated that Amazon/MGM’s Jen Salke was leaving her position as Head of Amazon Studios. Much like Kathleen Kennedy’s impending exit, the news of Salke’s departure was not seen as much of a shock to anyone, but what wasn’t reported was one of Salke’s final moves before having been shown the door.
What can be said about Salke? She's the person who gave the greenlight on Amazon’s $500M-costing “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” not to mention a $300M Russos Bros. bomb (“Citadel”), but most baffling of all was that $20M-per-year deal she gave Phoebe Waller-Bridge in 2019, which has so far yielded a total of zero movies and shows. Not just that, but the deal was bafflingly re-upped in 2022. lol.
That’s right, it’s been six years, Waller-Bridge has so far bagged well over $100M, and in return, Amazon got exactly zero shows out of it, including the long-gestating ‘Tomb Raider’ series (which is now in the middle of an extensive rewrite). Regardless, Puck’s Matt Belloni is now reporting that Salke yet again re-upped Waller-Bridge’s deal. But this time the contract was converted from an exclusive overall deal to a nonexclusive first look, and “for significantly less” money.
Salke recently told Variety that she has no regrets about the overall deal with Waller-Bridge, and that we should consider all the money that’s been dished out to her as more of a holding deal": “When we look at a long-term commitment to a creator like Phoebe — we’re so happy now that we retained her…”
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.