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Palak Patel, the longtime film executive who oversaw the Venom movies at Columbia Pictures, has been named chief content officer for Prime Focus Studios, the finance and production arm of visual effects powerhouse Dneg.

Prime Focus Studios, run by CEO Namit Malhotra, recently co-produced The Garfield Movie with Alcon Entertainment for Sony. The movie grossed more than $257 million globally. The company is currently in production on Animal Friends, with Legendary Pictures, and The Angry Birds Movie 3. It is also developing a big-screen telling of the Indian epic story Ramayana.

As the company sought to ramp up production and develop well-known IP, it sought out an exec that could navigate the worlds of big studios.

In announcing the hire, Malhotra stated, “Prime Focus Studios brings a new and entrepreneurial approach to the development and creation of the world’s biggest movies. Partnership and collaboration with studios and filmmakers are already part of our DNA,...

Updated Exclusive: Sony Pictures EVP of Production and Development Palak Patel is leaving the Culver City lot for a new gig as Chief Content Officer at Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios.

Prime Focus recently co-produced The Garfield Movie with Alcon Entertainment for Sony Pictures, grossing more than $257 million at the worldwide box office.

Prime Focus Studios was founded by Dneg CEO Malhotra to finance and produce films, TV series and other content at major studios, as well as independently. It is currently in production on Animal Friends, The Angry Birds Movie 3, and Ramayana.

Patel has been at Sony for the last 10 years, and played a key role in the $1.8 billion-grossing Venom franchise as well as Morbius.

Patel came to Sony in August 2015 as part of a motion picture group realignment by chairman Tom Rothman and then Sony Pictures Entertainment Group president Doug Belgrad.

Patel came in to Columbia Pictures...

Half a decade after The Angry Birds Movie 2 debuted in theaters, The Angry Birds Movie 3 has been announced with several original cast members set to return. The franchise began in 2009 with the launch of the original Angry Birds mobile game developed by Rovio to capitalize on the rise of smartphone gaming. The concept of the franchise is rather simple, and the puzzle action game typically involves the user launching the titular disgruntled avians at various structures built by green pigs who stole the birds' eggs. Through subsequent games and other media, the lore also grew.

Naturally, it didn't take long for the overnight success of Angry Birds to spill over into other forms of media, and a series of webtoons launched the film and TV wing of the expanding franchise. In 2016, a blockbuster film was released, and The Angry Birds Movie was a sure-fire box office hit. The...

London-based The Dneg Group has secured a $200M capital injection from Abu Dhabi investment firm United Al Saqer Group (Uasg), in move it says gives it a value in excess of $2B.

The UK-Indian company said the new funds would be used to accelerate the group’s strategy of innovation and diversification and plan to become a sector-agnostic content production and AI-powered technology partner.

Next steps in this strategy will be the full activation of technology division Brahma, which is developing an AI-powered, photo-real CGI creator, including Ziva, for which Dneg recently acquired the exclusive license from Unity.

“My career has been built on investing in and leading visual creativity with technology. Our partnership with Uasg, the launch of Brahma, and the success of our content creation platform are all being fuelled by the power of our technology. We are redefining our business model as a leader in top-end solutions across the world,...

Remember how we used to catapult birds into fortresses run by evil pigs? Yeah, the Angry Birds video game was one of the most popular ones by far and no one was surprised when Sony released a movie adaptation that went on to become one of the more popular animated movies of that year. A sequel was released in 2019, also to mostly positive reviews and since then… nothing. Well, at least not until today! Namely, today, producer John Cohen released a short teaser video featuring Red, which confirmed that The Angry Birds Movie 3 was in production, which made many fans happy!

Not much is known about the upcoming project, but we know that Sony won’t be involved with the third movie, and that Dneg Animation and Rovio’s new parent company, Sega Sammy Group are producing the upcoming sequel to the 2019’s hit film.

Now, as we have stated,...