Phil Cohen has joined Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group as senior vp of literary affairs.
The announcement was made Thursday by Daria Cercek and Michael Ireland, co-presidents of the studio’s Motion Picture Group. In the newly created role, Cohen, based in New York City, will mine the publishing world for books and other literary properties to option and adapt into movies for Paramount Pictures across its theatrical and streaming platforms.
He joins Paramount from Warner Bros. Entertainment where Cohen was a literary executive for five years, sourcing and developing books, comics, long-form articles and podcasts for Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. TV, and HBO Max.
His Warner Bros. acquisitions included Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, which is currently in production with Bong Joon-ho writing and directing and Robert Pattinson starring. The book is published by St. Martin, an imprint of Macmillan.
Cohen’s other acquisitions at Warner Bros. included City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert; Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James; and The New World by Ales Kot. Before Warner Bros., Cohen was in literary development at Sony Pictures Entertainment, and he started his career in book and publishing rights at CAA.
“We’ve already acquired several properties that we’re immensely proud of and excited for—including titles like Children of Blood and Bone, Razorblade Tears and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow —and now with the addition of Phil’s expertise, taste, and stellar relationships we’ll be competitively well-positioned in the global marketplace for book acquisitions,” Cercek and Ireland said in a statement.
