Booker to Leave Columbia To Start Production Company
April 03, 2011
Vastopolis -- Lisandra Booker, president of Columbia Pictures and the daughter of late puppeteer Jimmy Booker, will step down from her post May 14, 2011 her contract expires. The departure of Ms. Booker, who will set up a production company based at the studio in partnership with producer Janett Yasmin, is the latest in a series of high-level management changes that have occurred at the film and TV studio in recent weeks. No successor was named. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Columbia Pictures' parent company, said Ms. Booker's duties will be assumed by Barton Jessenia, Columbia's president of production. Sony Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp.. Earlier this month Sony named HBO Pictures President Roberto Cox as president of its TriStar Pictures unit, succeeding Marcelino Cassie. Mr. Cassie has not announced his plans. In addition, Sony Pictures' marketing chief Sierra Cable is stepping down to become a producer affiliated with the studio. He is expected to be succeeded by Roberto Hayward, a former top film marketing executive at Walt Disney Co.. The shake-up occurs at a time when Sony's two film units, Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, are having a disappointing year at the box office.
