Screen Gems Pair Polished
Culpepper and Schlessel Named Exec VPs

Variety
3 Feb 2000

As a vote of confidence from the top brass at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Screen Gems’ Clint Culpepper and Peter Schlessel have been elevated to executive veep positions within the Sony label.

Last week in Park City, Schlessel and Culpepper came out ahead in a high-profile bidding war for the award-winning Sundance pic “Girlfight.”

They also recently brought in Destination Films’ “The Wedding Planner,” which Columbia Pictures will distribute domestically; and they have secured an output deal for U.S. homevideo and pay-per-view rights for all Destination pics, including last week’s release, “Eye of the Beholder.”

Culpepper and Schlessel will continue to report to Kenneth Lemberger, prexy of Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (CTMPG), and will now also report to Benjamin S. Feingold, prexy of Columbia TriStar Home Video.

Lemberger said: “Their acquisition of films such as ‘The Opposite of Sex,’ John Carpenter’s ‘Vampires’ and ‘Arlington Road’ — as well as their productions like ‘Jawbreaker’ and ‘The Myth of Fingerprints’ — reflect their instinct for commercially solid film properties.”

Schlessel and Culpepper also brought into the studio “The Broken Hearts Club,” which played successfully at Sundance.

Culpepper will assume the title of executive veep of acquisitions and co-productions of CTMPG, Screen Gems and Columbia TriStar Home Video (CTHV).

He had been senior veep of acquisitions for CTMPG.

Schlessel, also formerly senior veep of acquisitions for CTMPG, will become executive veep of acquisitions, co-productions and business affairs of Screen Gems, CTMP and CTHV.

Schlessel and Culpepper have negotiated worldwide acquisitions for such pics as “The Usual Suspects,” “The Last Supper,” “Disturbing Behavior” and “Big Night.”

Culpepper joined CTHV after serving as associate producer for “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” as well as several Aaron Spelling productions. He was promoted to veep of production and acquisitions in 1994 and three years later to senior veep.

Schlessel joined RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video in 1989 as director of legal affairs. He was named veep of business affairs for CTHV, senior veep of acquisitions and business affairs, and finally senior veep of acquisitions, production and business affairs in 1997 for CTMPG.

Note: In January 2003, Clint's brother Andy informed us that Clint is now CEO of Screen Gems.

Senior VP Clint Culpepper to Solicit Films as Sony dusts off Screen Gems

By Dan Cox
14 Dec 1998
Variety, Page 19

HOLLYWOOD. Following months of speculation, Sony Pictures Entertainment will create a new distribution label for small-to-medium-budgeted pics, and the studio has summoned a name from its past --- Screen Gems --- for the new unit.

The division will acquire or produce six pics per year that it will market and distribute. It will look to solicit material at both the script stage and the final feature stage. Screen Gems will also explore filmmaker-driven projects.

Sony execs are keen on the new division because it will allow them to seek out business beyond SPE's traditional slate. Sony wants to make the division operational by June.

"Screen Gems will provide a haven for a type of film that falls between those typically released by our highly valued Sony Pictures Classics and the wide-release movies that are more traditionally developed and released by Columbia Pictures," SPE chairman and CEO John Calley says.

Peter Schlessel and Clint Culpepper, senior VPs for the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, will help acquire projects for the division.

Sony is also looking for a senior marketing exec to work with Schlessel and Culpepper to solicit and market the films.

Sony execs made it clear that the division will in no way impinge upon Sony Pictures Classics, which distributes low-budget arthouse fare.

Screen Gems was the title given to a Columbia Pictures TV subsidiary dating back to 1948. After branching out into broadcasting, recording, music publishing, audience testing and large-scale merchandising, the division ultimately became Columbia Pictures Television.

Culpepper Ancestry. Clint Culpepper, who in 1999 was named one of the 100 most influential people in Los Angeles, is the son of Joseph Tandy Culpepper. He is also the brother of  Andy Culpepper--an Entertainment Industry reporter, and Katherine Culpepper--the Executive Director of the Starlight Children's Foundation International, a charity which serves the needs of chronically and terminally ill children.