When Tony Vinciquerra joined Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2017, it was far from business as usual.
Culver City Studios is still reeling from a 2014 cyberattack that exposed employees’ personal information and internal communications, damaging its reputation and causing significant financial losses. The company’s film studio has been in such slump that its parent company in Tokyo, Sony Corp., took a nearly $1 billion writedown months before Mr. Vinciquerra was announced as its new chief executive and chairman.
At the time, he was working at private equity firm TPG after a long career at Fox Networks.
“When people approached me about this job, I had no intention of going back to work full time and being in the office every day, but what really appealed to me was the possibility. ” said Vinciquerra, 70.
Under his leadership, Sony Pictures has undergone a renaissance.
The movie studio has reinvigorated several franchises, including “Jumanji” and “Bad Boys,” churned out the pivotal “Spider-Man” movies, and produced films and television series based on its intellectual works. began leveraging its sister PlayStation video game division by producing . property. The studio continued to nurture its flagship shows “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” and weathered host changes for both. We then expanded our business by making acquisitions in the anime market and movie theaters.
But the studio also had its struggles. Like other studios, Sony’s business was hit by the pandemic and last year’s double strike. The company made an unsuccessful bid for Paramount Global earlier this year. Efforts by film studios to expand the Spider-Man universe into films about characters other than the titular superhero have met with middling box office success.
On January 2nd, Mr. Vinciquerra will step down from his role and leadership, handing over his role to current Sony Pictures Chief Operating Officer Ravi Ahuja in a planned replacement that has been announced for several months.
Vinciquerra spoke to the Times ahead of his final day, discussing his more than seven-year tenure at Sony Pictures and what’s next. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Please describe the situation at Sony Pictures when you joined the company in 2017.
The studio and business environment was still reeling from the effects of the hack. A lot of damage was done in terms of privacy violations and email sharing. It was obvious. I felt this in June 2017 when I joined the company.
We found that there is a lot of room for improvement in our financial situation. The fact that Sony owned photography, music, PlayStation, technology…no other company in this industry combined assets like this. I couldn’t understand why the company wasn’t passing intellectual property back and forth between departments and really collaborating. So I saw it as a great opportunity. That’s the real reason I decided to come here.
What were your main priorities when you started this job?
All of our competitors had launched or were about to launch general entertainment streaming services, so we were under pressure to do the same. But we quickly realized that if everyone else is doing it, if all seven or eight of our competitors are doing it, then why should we? I noticed. If we know that they are fighting desperately to gain subscribers, why would we become arms dealers and supply streaming services with weapons to fight each other, thereby improving our business? Is it not possible?
At the time, there were also 110 cable networks. And it was clear that the business was going downhill. So we developed a strategy to exit that business in most regions, with the exception of Latin America, Spain and India, which are still very strong markets for cable networks.
Looking back at what happened to all the streamers, the arms dealer’s decision seems pretty prescient.
It was very clear, and the cable networks’ decisions were very clear. And really, what’s happening in business today is that most of the streaming services are going to benefit, but the cable networks are going in the wrong direction and that’s not going to change. That’s exactly the problem for our fellow companies.
What do you think about the future of anime?
We still have a long way to go since we haven’t rolled out Crunchyroll globally yet. Anime viewers are very passionate. Violent in a good way, but not in a bad way. They are the most passionate audience ever. A wonderful future awaits you. And unfortunately, others are now realizing it too and starting to get into this business. Netflix and Hulu are starting to get into this business, raising the cost of their products. But, you know, it comes with success.
Part of your tenure has included strikes, and you’ve previously commented that you feel contract terms from unions are increasing costs and forcing productions out of the United States. But do you think California’s new film tax credit proposal will change that?
I don’t think the changes in California will really affect (the situation). Because this change still doesn’t cover top actors, it doesn’t cover casting, and it’s still a very difficult process to do in California.
Not only did the union deal raise costs, so did the state of California. You just have to jump through regulations and hoops to get production here. As I leave this job, my suggestion is to take a hard look at your program and business limitations and try to understand them.
What do you think of the film studio’s performance during your tenure?
Most of the results were very good. Unfortunately, last weekend’s release (“Kraven the Hunter”), and my last film release, didn’t do very well as it was probably the worst release in 7 and a half years. It still doesn’t work. I don’t understand this movie because it’s not a bad movie.
But we were very successful. Since I’ve been here, we’ve exceeded budget every year, despite strikes and COVID-19, and we’ve had some years with the highest bonuses for all employees. It worked, and the movie studio contributed greatly to it.
Going back to “Kraven the Hunter,” Sony released “Madame Web” earlier this year, which also underperformed…
Let’s talk a little bit about “Madame Web”. “Madame Web” was only crucified by the press and did poorly at the box office. It wasn’t a bad movie, and it was a huge hit on Netflix. For some reason, the press decided they didn’t want to make these movies based on “Craven” and “Madame Web,” and the critics just trashed them. We did that with “Venom,” and the audience loved “Venom,” making “Venom” a huge hit. These aren’t terrible movies. For some reason, they were just destroyed by critics in the press.
Do you think we need to reconsider Spider-Man’s global strategy?
I think you need to reconsider that, just because you were bitten by a snake. If you put out another one, it will be destroyed, for better or for worse.
What do you think about the state of the industry heading into 2025?
The time has come to readjust your assets. It will probably take another year and a half to two years. I think it’s going to be a bit chaotic. One thing we know for sure is that the demand for entertainment isn’t going away. Things are starting to change little by little. However, if all these companies reach a stable state, we can expect great growth in the future.
2026 is going to be a great year for the movie business. And the TV business remains strong and our market share continues to rise, so we’re very happy with that. We are also considering other businesses. The movie and TV business probably won’t be a big growth business, but we’re looking at other things. We have Crunchyroll, we have Alamo Drafthouse, and we’re looking at location-based entertainment projects. I’m pretty happy with the current situation of the company. It’s very stable compared to other businesses.
Why was Sony interested in signing with Alamo Drafthouse?
It’s a very different and very unique concept for watching movies. It’s a very small business. Therefore, it has to grow into an important market for the domestic box office.
Despite having only 41 locations, Alamo has 4.5 million loyalty program members. Therefore, it has built-in means for interacting with customers. It will be a huge advantage for us in the future. And second, Alamo Drafthouse’s customer profile isn’t all that similar to Crunchyroll. So we use this to promote Crunchyroll and in many other ways as well. It wasn’t a huge cash outlay, but the future results of taking customer likes and dislikes into account will pay big dividends in the long run.
After you retire, you will move into an advisory role in 2025. What will that role be?
I’m here to answer questions and I’m going to do some work at Sony Tokyo, but I’m in a different office and hiding so no one can find me. I don’t know. Let’s see what happens.
What are your future plans?
i don’t know yet. I have received a lot of support from private equity firms and other investment-oriented companies. I won’t think about it until after the holidays. But it’s likely, but not certain, to include some level of interest in private equity or investment companies.
How would you describe your accomplishments at Sony Pictures?
What I get spiritual reward from is helping people do better at their jobs and advance their careers, and that’s actually how I judge how well I’m doing. The second part of that result is leaving the place better than you found it. And I think I’ve done that in almost every place I’ve been. I like fixing things and it makes everything better.
I think I could leave this place in a better place, but time will tell. I feel like it’s a very stable business, and I think that’s our legacy.
