Amazon MGM Studios puts Mayo and Rapaport in joint charge of films
Amazon MGM Studios has put two executives in joint charge of its films.
Alana Mayo has been promoted to Head of Film, Production & Development, sharing the title with Julie Rapaport, according to Variety. It is a job-share at the top of the movies operation.
The appointments were set out by Courtenay Valenti in a staff memo on Tuesday, 20 October 2026. Valenti is head of film, streaming and theatrical at Amazon MGM Studios. Both Mayo and Rapaport will report directly to her. The memo is the usual Hollywood way of confirming a new organisation chart. It tells staff, and the wider industry, who answers to whom.
Production and development is the engine-room job. It starts long before cameras roll. The team hunts for scripts, books, plays and original ideas. It attaches writers and directors, courts stars, orders rewrites and decides which projects move forward. At a studio such as Amazon MGM, that pipeline feeds two destinations. Some films are built for cinemas. Others are built for Prime Video at home.
Mayo arrives from inside the group. She served as head of Orion Pictures, as noted by The Hollywood Reporter. That put her in charge of a focused label with its own releases and film-makers. She knows how to run a slate. Her promotion moves her from that label to the centre of the whole film operation. It is a step up in scale and responsibility.
Rapaport brings continuity and institutional memory. She served as head of film creative and strategy at Amazon MGM Studios, The Hollywood Reporter reported. The title covered creative direction across the film group. Before that, she ran the Amazon Original Movies team. She also oversaw the MGM film team during Amazon's integration of MGM, according to Deadline. Few executives know both sides of that combination as closely.
What makes this stand out is the pairing itself. Studios often choose a single voice to lead film development. A joint structure is less common. It can spread the workload. Development slates are wide. Dozens of projects sit at different stages at any one time. Two leaders can divide writers, directors and genres between them. They can test decisions against each other before money is spent.
For viewers, nothing changes this weekend. Films take years to travel from memo to marquee. Casting, shooting, editing and release planning all come later. The effect will show in choices made now. Which scripts get bought. Which directors get hired. Which stories reach a cinema or a living room in two or three years. Every ticket starts with a yes in a meeting like this one.
