Bob Bakish is thrilled about the box office performance of John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place,” and he’s singling out new Paramount Pictures management for a large portion of the horror movie’s success.
“This is the first film that was both produced and released under the new management team,” Bakish said Wednesday on his company’s earnings conference call. “That has shown up in the quality of the exact film, the cost discipline, the way it was marketed.”
Don’t freak out, Krasinski fans, Bakish also gave a nod to the “quality” of the movie in his response to a media analyst’s question about how Paramount handled its big hit differently.
The Viacom boss is looking ahead to more of the same from his studio. Bakish’s relatively new team has already greenlit and dated a dozen films for 2019, and he thinks they’ll add four more.
He believes the slate’s quality matches its beefed-up quantity.
“We’re excited about the diversity and balance of the upcoming slate,” Bakish said. “When I talked to Jim [Gianopulos] even before he joined the company and he looked at our ’17 slate, he was troubled by its construction. This slate that we have for ’19 [has] a great balance of tentpoles, almost half of the films are modestly priced — budgets $25 million or less — and of course, as I’ve said before, branded films play a prominent part in the slate as well.”
“So, [I’m] very excited about the capabilities of this team [and] also their relationships in the creative community for sourcing product,” he said.
“At the end of the day, great management matters and we have great management at Paramount,” Bakish concluded.
Read about Viacom’s actual Q2 earnings here.