UPDATED EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures EVP of Production and Development Palak Patel is leaving the Culver City lot for a new gig as Chief Content Officer at Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios.
Prime Focus Studios recently co-produced The Garfield Movie with Alcon Entertainment for Sony Pictures, which grossed over $257M worldwide.
Prime Focus Studios was founded by DNEG CEO Malhotra to finance and produce films, TV series and other content at major studios, as well as independently. Prime Focus Studios is currently in production on Animal Friends, The Angry Birds Movie 3, and Ramayana.
Patel has been at Sony for the last ten years, and played a key role in the $1.8 billion grossing Venom franchise as well as Morbius.
Patel came to Sony in August 2015 as part of a motion picture group realignment by Chairman Tom Rothman and then Sony Pictures Entertainment Group president Doug Belgrad.
Patel came in to Columbia Pictures as its new EVP of Production from Joe Roth’s company, Roth Films, where he served as President of Production. With Roth, Patel had EP credits on some big films Snow White and the Huntsman and its sequel The Huntsman: Winters War (the franchise grossing over a half billion worldwide) , Oz: The Great and Powerful ($493.3M) and Disney’s Maleficent ($759.8M) as well as the Ron Howard clipper ship epic, In the Heart of the Sea. Patel was also an EP on the Russo Brothers’ Ryan Gosling-Chris Evans-Ana de Armas spy action feature The Gray Man which is the sixth most watched movie ever on Netflix with over 139M global views.
Sony recently cleared $1 billion at the domestic box office from its main label, as well as Sony Pictures Classics and Crunchyroll divisions. The Venom franchise has been quite profitable for the studio, the last installment, Venom: The Last Dance, earning over $476M worldwide and $140M domestic off a $120M production cost before P&A.