AGBO has hired executives from Snap, Apple and the studios behind “Call of Duty” and “Starfield” to lead marketing, technology and interactive production.
The company was founded by Anthony and Joe Russo, the filmmakers behind “Avengers: Endgame” and “Captain America: Civil War,” with partners Donald Mustard and Chris Brearton. Its productions range from the “Extraction” franchise to “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Gray Man.”
As part of the wave of hires, Luke Kallis will join AGBO as president of marketing and growth, and is being tasked with building a direct relationship with audiences across every medium. He has spent two decades building audience platforms. He joined Facebook before it had 20 million users, Vevo as music shifted to digital, and Snap as it grew from $67 million to $2.7 billion in Americas revenue.
Alex Blickenstaff has joined as vice president of engineering. Blickenstaff spent nearly a decade at Apple building the data engineering behind one of the world’s largest platforms. Heath will build the technology layer that connects AGBO’s linear and interactive businesses.
Derek Racca joins AGBO as executive producer, interactive, focusing on building the company’s slate of games. He has shipped games that hundreds of millions of people have played including “Call of Duty,” “The Elder Scrolls,” “Fallout,” “Doom” and “Starfield.” He joins AGBO from Atomic Arcade, a Wizards of the Coast studio.
The company also promoted Matt Davidson from chief financial officer to chief operating officer. Davidson joined AGBO after serving as CFO of Amazon MGM Studios and following two decades spent at MGM most recently as its CFO.
“We are building AGBO for the industry’s next evolution,” said Chris Brearton, CEO of AGBO. “That requires a cross-disciplinary team of innovative and collaborative leaders. Luke, Alex and Derek bring expertise in storytelling, audience growth and interactive entertainment, helping us reach audiences wherever they are. Matt’s promotion to chief operating officer strengthens our leadership team with the financial and operational discipline to match our ambition.”
The appointments come as AGBO joins SXSW London as a major partner this week, where partners Anthony Russo, Joe Russo and Donald Mustard will discuss building entertainment across film, gaming and interactive formats.
The company is preparing to release “The Whisper Man,” starring Robert De Niro, this fall. “Avengers: Doomsday” will open on Dec 18, with “Avengers: Secret Wars” following in 2027. Both “Avengers” films are co-produced by AGBO with Marvel Studios. The company is in post-production with Netflix on “Tygo” and “Mercenary” — both set within the “Extraction” universe — and John Rambo with “Lionsgate.” Production on “Extraction 3” will begin this summer in Australia and Thailand.
English (US) ·