Former Netflix film head Scott Stuber has closed a deal with Amazon MGM Studios to relaunch the United Artists label and finance and release features from his new production company.
The arrangement includes a first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios and will see Stuber based on the Culver City lot, producing several films a year under the UA label for release theatrically and on Prime Video.
Stuber will be involved in all projects released by the new UA including those that do not originate from his company. UA was launched in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks and was acquired by MGM in 1981, before that studio was itself recently snapped up by Amazon.
Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios, hailed Stuber’s “proven track record of delivering global hits and an eye towards theatrical fare”, adding that the hire aligned with the company’s film strategy with an eye on turning existing and new UA and MGM intellectual property into “big, broad films”.
Stuber added, “During this dynamic and transformative time for our industry, I am excited to have the opportunity to work with partners who are committed to telling stories that reach and resonate with global audiences.”
The move comes as Amazon MGM Studios continues to ramp up its theatrical ambitions. Jason Statham action thriller The Beekeeper grossed more than $150m worldwide earlier this year, while Challengers took close to $100m worldwide. American Fiction earned five Oscar nods and won for best adapted screenplay, and Ramell Ross’s The Nickel Boys was announced recently as the opening night film at New York Film Festival in September.
Coming up on the slate, which executives touted to industry and press at CinemaCon last spring, are Sundance acquisition My Old Ass, Blink Twice, Red One, The Fire Inside, Levon’s Trade, Mercy, Crime 101, After The Hunt, and Project Hail Mary.
The studio has also reported two of its biggest streaming hits ever this year. Road House, the re-imagining starring Jake Gyllenhaal, drew nearly 80million worldwide viewers in under two months on Prime Video and ranks as the studio’s most-watched produced film debut ever worldwide. Romantic comedy The Idea Of You starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine drew 50million worldwide viewers in its first two weeks on the service to become the studio’s top romantic-comedy debut of all time.
Stuber served as chairman of Netflix Film from 2017 to 2024 when he oversaw titles like Red Notice, Netflix’s most popular film of all time, Bird Box, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, All Quiet On The Western Front, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, The Irishman, and Roma.
The veteran producer and exeutive is currently producing Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein for Netflix and Scott Cooper’s Bruce Springsteen film, Deliver Me From Nowhere, for 20th Century Studios and Disney.
Prior to Netflix, Stuber founded and ran Bluegrass Films, which produced such hits as Ted, Central Intelligence, and Safe House.
As vice chairman of worldwide production at Universal Studios he was responsible for many hits including A Beautiful Mind, Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man, 8 Mile, and the Meet The Parents and the Fast And The Furious franchises.
Originally published at https://www.screendaily.com/news/former-netflix-film-head-scott-stuber-relaunching-united-artists-label/5195788.article
