English Entertainment
Buena Vista Home Entertainment International names Jerome Le Grand as senior VP
MUMBAI:Buena Vista Home Entertainment International (BVHEI) announces its new appointment for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
The company has named Jerome Le Grand to the newly created position of senior vice president/deputy general manager for EMEA.
In his new role, Le Grand will be working with BVHEI senior VP/general manager of EMEA Julie Sneddon as a key partner within her new management team and will be reporting directly to her.
Le Grand’s responsibilities will include the management of the departments such as finance, operations/ESCO, commercial planning and distribution, emerging markets group for the EMEA.
He will also serve as business contact for the European legal department. He will be charged with assisting and driving the growth of each area to new and greater heights.
“Over the past five years, Jerome has led the charge in the successful development and execution of our strategy. As Jerome joins the European regional office, I have no doubt that his excellent judgement and financial acumen will play a pivotal role in helping to further accomplish and exceed our goals,” commented Buena Vista Home Entertainment International president Dennis Maguire.
Le Grand joined Disney in 1996 as a senior financial analyst at Buena Vista International (BVI) and later promoted to VP in 2000 wherein he took on the dual role of overseeing finance and planning for both BVI and BVHEI.
In 2005, he was promoted to Senior VP finance, sales planning and distribution for BVHEI and finance and sales planning for BVI, where his revamping of the international finance organization has helped guide both divisions to record setting years.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
