Twenty-First Century Fox CEO James Murdoch said the executive changes at its movie studio were driven by a string of poor box office performances, echoing statements that his brother, Fox Executive Co-Chairman Lachlan Murdoch, made last week.
“[We] acknowledge failures where they are,” Murdoch said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference in New York. “We have not been as consistent as we wanted to be — as we had been historically.”
In his remarks at the three-day event, Murdoch explained that the moves at 20th Century Fox, which saw Chairman Jim Gianopulos depart earlier than expected this month and Stacey Snider replace him, came down to its inability to repeatedly deliver movies that won over audiences, as expressed in Fox’s weak box office performance over the last couple years.