Sony’s President of Domestic Distribution Adrian Smith is retiring after a 35-year run at the studio.Taking over for Smith is Adam Bergerman who is being upped to President of Distribution.Smith was named to the post in January 2013. Following the retirement of longtime Worldwide Distribution President Rory Bruer in April 2017, global duties were separated with Smith on domestic, and Steven O’Dell overseeing International.Smith was key in the release of 1,025 films across all Sony labels, 202 of them No. 1 titles. His fingerprints are all over the successful revivals of the Bad Boys franchise, the animated Spider-Verse films, Ghostbusters, the Venom $1 billion+ series as well as the Tom Holland-starring Spider-Man movies which have minted close to $4B alone. The release of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home stands as the 7th highest grossing movie of all-time, the best ever for Sony, with $1.95 billion worldwide and $814.8M domestic.Bergerman is a 28-year Sony vet, starting as a booker in 1996 before being upped to sales manager, then district manager for the Eastern Division in the New York office. Bergerman came to the Sony lot in 2012 as SVP Western Division, before being promoted to EVP, General Sales Manager in 2017. He’s been involved in the releases of eight live action Spider-Man movies, the Spider-Verse films, Men in Black franchises and Sony’s run with the 007 Daniel Craig titles Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre.There’s been a lot of movements in motion picture distribution land of late: Disney Global Distribution Head Tony Chambers is segueing over to be President of EMEA for the studio with his replacement to be named. Warner Bros. just consolidated global distribution under domestic president Jeff Goldstein with International Distribution President Andrew Cripps departing.Here’s the full email to staff from Sony Pictures Motion Pictures President Josh Greenstein, who Smith reports into. Within that is Smith’s personal note to staff.In a replay all to staff, Sony Motion Pictures Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman expressed his congrats to Smith: “I just wanted to add my personal congratulations to him and my deepest thanks for the many years of fellowship and teamwork – A special man and a great colleague. Fair winds, my dear friend.”
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