Jennifer Salke is no longer the head of Amazon MGM, as the TV veteran leaves to set up her own production company.
After seven years in the role, Jennifer Salke is stepping down as the head of Amazon MGM, it’s been announced. The veteran of TV – she was previously president of NBC – is instead setting up her own production company, which will have a first-look deal with her old employer.
Salke joined Amazon in 2018, right as the era of peak streaming began; only a year earlier, the company had acquired the rights to The Lord Of The Rings from the Tolkien Estate for a deal thought to be north of $1bn. Amazon then bought up Hollywood studio MGM in 2021, and Salke became the overseer of the newly-minted Amazon MGM’s film and TV output.
During her tenure, Amazon MGM’s output included the likes of Saltburn and Road House, as well as hit shows including Fallout, Reacher and Lord Of The Rings series, Rings Of Power.
It hasn’t been all plain sailing at the conglomerate in recent years, however. Part of the $8.45bn MGM deal was the rights to James Bond, and as a new movie has failed to emerge since 2021’s No Time To Die, stories of behind-the-scenes disagreements had begun to proliferate. Amazon MGM made a further deal in February 2025 – said to be worth $1bn – that gave the company full creative control over the Bond franchise, with producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson stepping back from the enterprise.
There have been rumours that Salke’s departure may have something to do with creative clashes over the future of James Bond, though in an email to staff about the matter, another Amazon MGM Studios boss, Mike Hopkins, strikes an upbeat tone.
“Jen will step down from her role as Head of Amazon MGM Studios in order to start a new production entity,” Hopkins wrote in a memo published by The Hollywood Reporter, “and we’re so pleased that she’ll continue to make her home right here on our lot via an overall first-look deal across both film and TV.”
Elsewhere, Hopkins said that the company has “decided to flatten [its] leadership structure a bit”. Rather than replace Salke with another overall head, there’ll be Courtenay Valenti heading up Amazon MGM’s film arm, while Vernon Sanders is its head of TV.
“As I’ve been considering my next chapter, I’ve always been searching for that moment where I was positive that our work had set up Amazon MGM Studios for even more success in the long term,” Salke wrote in her own statement, included in Hopkins’ memo. “When I look at the teams we’ve put in place, our amazing leaders, and the incredible slate of films and shows we’ve got in the pipeline, I realized now is that moment.”
Salke’s departure comes days after the announcement that Amy Pascal and David Heyman have taken over as the producers in charge of the Bond franchise. It’s thought that, after years of inertia, a new James Bond film will begin filming imminently ahead of its planned release in 2027.
