Toby Emmerich Steps Down as Warner Bros. Motion Picture Chairman

Toby Emmerich is stepping down from his post as chairman of Warner Bros. motion picture group. The studio head has served as chairman at Warners since 2018. Deadline first reported the news.

Emmerich became a Warners executive while at New Line Cinema, where he rose from production president to become its president and chief operating officer of New Line in 2008 — the same year that Warners decided that the company would no longer operate as a separate studio. In 2017, Emmerich was promoted to president and Chief Content Officer of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group; in 2018, he became its chairman.

Representatives at Warner Bros. did not immediately respond to IndieWire’s request for comment.

At Warner Bros., Emmerich also served as executive producer on films like “The Many Saints of Newark” and Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” which premiered last week at the Cannes Film Festival. Warners saw major success this year with the release of “The Batman” to a worldwide gross of $752 million.

Emmerich’s departure was not unexpected, given the sweeping changes being made by new CEO David Zaslav amid the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Zaslav and Emmerich were most recently seen together at the Cannes premiere of “Elvis,” which releases June 24.

Emmerich is expected to be replaced by Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, who will be named co-chairs of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group after their departure from MGM amid that studio’s Amazon acquisition. Their MGM contracts expire this summer. De Luca previously served as head of production at New Line. Luca and Abdy’s new oversight would include Warners and New Line.

Emmerich is expected to receive a production deal at Warner Bros.

AT&T completed its spinoff of WarnerMedia into the new merger with Discovery in April and has seen a wave of staff exits in the process, including Johanna Fuentes as Warner Bros. communications chief.

More to come…