By mcneditor editor@moviecitynews.com

Terry Press And Wolfgang Hammer Named Co-Presidents Of CBS Films

LOS ANGELES, April 23, 2012 — CBS Corporation announced today that Wolfgang Hammer and Terry Press have been named Co-Presidents of the CBS Films division.

“In Terry and Wolfgang, we are fortunate to have two very skilled executives, each with terrific knowledge of the business and strong resumes of innovation,” said Leslie Moonves, President and CEO of CBS Corporation, to whom they will report.  “They both possess the ‘roll-up-your-sleeves’ attitude for making, acquiring and marketing quality films for a division that is small in size, but laser-focused on assembling a mix of home-grown productions and acquisitions across a diverse range of genres. I look forward to the ongoing contributions they will make as they work together on all aspects of CBS Films to achieve our shared objective of developing great movies and growing this new part of our company.”

Terry Press, who has been consulting for the studio since 2010, will oversee creative, distribution, marketing and physical production for CBS Films. As the principal of 7570 Marketing Inc., she has consulted on several CBS Films releases including ”The Mechanic,” ”Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” and ”The Woman in Black.”  Additionally, she has consulted on recent films such as ”The Hunger Games,” ”Julie & Julia,” ”The Social Network,” ”Hugo” and ”Valkyrie.”  Prior to 7570, Press served as the head of marketing for DreamWorks SKG, where she oversaw the campaigns for all live-action and animated features including ”Saving Private Ryan,” ”American Beauty,” “Gladiator” and “Shrek.”

“Terry has been behind some of the biggest film campaigns of the past two decades,” added Moonves. ”She is highly respected across the industry for her instincts, taste and ability to conceive and adapt campaigns for any film in any genre. We are thrilled that she will now be bringing her characteristic drive and creative energy to this new role at CBS.”

Wolfgang Hammer previously served as the Chief Operating Officer for CBS Films. He will oversee all business, finance, legal affairs and acquisitions, including financed, co-financed and completed projects for the division. As COO of CBS Films, he oversaw the acquisition of ”The Woman in Black,” ”Gambit” and ”The Words,” as well as the co-financing and distribution deals for the upcoming Martin McDonagh film ”Seven Psychopaths.” Prior to joining CBS Films, Hammer served as Executive Vice President of the Motion Picture Group at Lionsgate. Before Lionsgate, Hammer served as Vice President, Production, at Media Rights Capital. He is a graduate of the University of Vienna Law School and earned his master’s at Stanford University.

“Wolfgang is one of the brightest new stars in the industry,” said Moonves. “He is an aggressive and innovative dealmaker with terrific passion and talent for identifying the right film at the right time. Since the day he arrived, he has been an integral part of the division’s growth and forward momentum, and played an important role in developing a slate of filmmaker-driven titles that have great quality and financial upside. His intelligence, business acumen and deal-making skills will be a key part of our effort, as we move to build our film division in the years to come.”

The studio’s most recent wide release was the hit ”The Woman in Black,” which garnered strong reviews and has delivered more than $54 million in domestic box office. More recently, the division opened ”Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” in limited release to excellent notices and a strong $12,550 per screen average. CBS Films recently wrapped production on the multi-generational comedy ”Get A Job,” starring Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad,” “Drive”), Miles Teller (“Footloose,” “Project X”) and Anna Kendrick (“Up In The Air,” “50/50″). This summer, the studio will release the horror thriller ”7500,” followed later in the year by Martin McDonagh’s action comedy ”Seven Psychopaths,” the romantic drama ”The Words,” starring Bradley Cooper (“The Hangover,” “Limitless”) and Zoe Saldana (“Avatar,” “Star Trek”) and, in 2013, the Coen-brothers scripted ”Gambit,” starring Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz and Alan Rickman.

About CBS Films
CBS Films is a division of CBS Corporation. CBS Films will release four to six movies a year, spanning all genres.  For more information, log on to www.cbsfilms.com.

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“I don’t really think, Sean, that you need to know about my various sexual liaisons. Or that anyone else needs to. I did write about them. I filled a hundred pages of Moleskine notebooks with my one-night stands, my affairs. But I decided they didn’t belong in a professional memoir. First of all, these are real people we’re talking about. Many of them were enjoyable. Some were abject failures. My wife said to me when she read the pages, ‘Of what purpose is this in a memoir? Of what purpose is this other than to titillate?’ The point is, I never see them. It’s because I have nothing in common with them, frankly. And probably didn’t at the time. I could not provide a sensible reason why I married these women. The thing is, in the case of my marriages, it takes two people to fuck up a marriage. It wasn’t simply the fault of these women that I lost interest in them and realised they were insignificant relationships. Which is how I look at them right now–as being insignificant. I see them as blips.”
~ William Friedkin On Cutting Interviewers Off At The Sass

“I have to imagine from Mr. Spielberg’s point of view, the paradigm shift in the 1970s was just the new “normal,” a “halcyon era” from which we are straying in the 21st century–because theatrical exhibition is tenuous (as it has been since the 1940s), the home video market has dried up and people are watching pirated movies on their phone. Spielberg’s coming-of-age era was for him the halcyon period that the 21st century “implosion” will cause to go “crashing into the ground.” But he is wrong. The market for movies is actually diverse and highly segmented–although from the top-down movie industry vantage point and media punditry you would not think this to be true.  Would we really mourn for Mr. Spielberg or ourselves if Lincoln would have been made for cable or had played on public television?  Is it bad for humanity that cable television is creating wonderful, resonant stories in long-form series that people want to watch at home on TV (or streamed onto their computer)? I don’t think so, but it is a paradigm shift and it might affect people’s theatrical moviegoing habits. Televisions in people’s homes have had that effect for seven decades–it is not a new phenomenon. As Art House cinema impresarios we need to focus on what WE can do at our theaters and in our communities. It is not productive for us to fret over what pundits say or about what well-meaning filmmakers like the Stevens–Spielberg and Soderbergh–say. We should fret about what we can do in our communities. What we can do to support filmmakers.”
~ From A Response By Russ Collins, CEO, Michigan Theater – Ann Arbor And Director, Art House Convergence, To Mr. Spielberg