Deadline: Scott Stuber Closes Deal To Revive United Artists

Story from Deadline

Amazon MGM has confirmed the Scott Stuber hire. Find their release below Deadline’s break on the story.

Former Netflix Chairman Film and Universal Vice Chairman Scott Stuber is near a deal to revive United Artists under the Amazon MGM umbrella, sources said.

Stuber left in January, though he stayed on a bit to help the transition that led to former Warner Bros exec Dan Lin taking the film reins at the streamer. Stuber was expected to form his own company, and Deadline revealed that his first project would be Deliver Me From Nowhere. That is the Scott Cooper-directed film that will star Emmy winning The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen. The film covers how the singer came out of the depths of depression writing and recording his seminal album Nebraska. 20th Century’s David Greenbaum and Steve Asbell landed the film in heated competition, and Stuber produces with Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Eric Robinson.

United Artists is the storied brand that boasts films ranging from Apocalypse Now to 12 Angry Men and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, but not much recently. Seeing the label reemerge under a talent friendly go-getter like Stuber would be a shot of good news for a movie industry still struggling to regain its footing after last year’s double strike. He now has the wherewithal to revive the most storied film studio, and restore the luster with theatrical releases. The last time someone made a go at restoring UA was the time that Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner revived the shingle, but it waned after a few underperforming films, and Cruise’s need to reestablish his star.

Stuber helped establish Netflix as a filmmaker-friendly place, but it was clear that the streamer’s steadfast strategy of eschewing traditional theatrical releases with P&A spends to instead make films for its paying global subscribers, took a toll on him. The films he has overseen range from Red Notice to Bird Box, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, All Quiet on the Western Front, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, The Adam Project, The Gray Man, The Power of the Dog, The Irishman, and many others including Marriage Story and Roma.

Before Netflix, Stuber ran Bluegrass Films and produced Ted, Central Intelligence and Safe House, among many others. He built his strong talent relationships before that at Universal Studios, where he was vice chairman of worldwide production overseeing films including A Beautiful Mind, Seabiscuit, Cincerella Man, Jarhead, 8 Miles, Meet the Parents, and the Bourne Identity and Fast and Furious franchises. More than 20 of the films he supervised there grossed over $100 million at the US box office.