Warner Bros. Production President Kevin McCormick to become producer at studio

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Warner Bros. Production President and 10-year veteran Kevin McCormick is transitioning to an exclusive three-year production deal at the Burbank studio. McCormick will stay in his executive role, which he has held since January 2008, until the end of December.

The studio said McCormick’s job would not be filled with another executive. Rather, beginning in January, Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov will assume some of McCormick’s duties and reassign his other responsibilities to executives on his team.

A person inside Warner said that McCormick and Robinov had recently discussed the idea of him segueing into a production deal at the studio. Two people familiar with the matter said there had been growing ‘awkwardness’ between the two executives whose jobs tended to overlap. People said Robinov, who had been head of production for five years before being promoted two years ago, had remained very hands-on despite the expansion of his duties.

McCormick had another year to go on his contract, and in a prepared statement said he was eager to get back to the ‘creative side of filmmaking, which is what I most care about.’ Early in his career, McCormick had worked extensively on the production side of the business.

Among the first Warner Bros. projects that McCormick will tackle at his new production company are ‘Dead Spy Running,’ adapted by Stephen Gaghan; ‘The Lucky One,’ to be directed by Doug McGrath and produced by Denise Di Novi; ‘Arthur,’ with producers Larry Bresner and Chris Bender; and an untitled project with screenwriter Eric Roth.

McCormick, who as a film executive was involved with such films as Tim Burton’s ‘Charlie and The Chocolate Factory,’ ‘The Perfect Storm’ and ‘The Last Samurai,’ will also maintain an association with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures by becoming a producer on several of that unit’s projects in development and pre-production.

Before joining Warner Bros. in 1999, McCormick worked at Fox 2000 as executive vice president of production. He began his career at the Robert Stigwood Organization in London, working on such films as ‘Saturday Night Fever’ (which he executive produced), ‘Grease,’ ‘Tommy’ and ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’ He then went on to form a producing partnership with actress Sally Field and later had a production deal at Paramount Pictures.

-- Claudia Eller