Motion Pictures
March 17, 2004
Warner Bros. Pictures Announces Staff Changes In Domestic Publicity
(March 17, 2004 – Burbank, CA) – Warner Bros. Pictures Domestic Publicity announced that today that Maggie Schmidt, formerly Vice President, Publicity in the Studio’s Burbank, California offices, will move to New York to run the department’s publicity activities there. At the same time, Suzanne Fritz will be joining Warner Bros. Pictures in Burbank as Vice President, Publicity to fill Schmidt’s former post. The announcements were made by Debbie Miller, Senior Vice President, Domestic Publicity, Warner Bros. Pictures, to whom both women report.
“We are very fortunate to have Suzanne contributing her great relationships, work ethic and leadership to our movie campaigns,” said Miller. And Maggie, who has been one of our most creative and inspired executives, will bring new perspective and a wealth of experience to our New York team, which is exciting for all of us. I’m looking forward to great things from both Maggie and Suzanne as they work with our already-strong department in their new positions.”
Schmidt will retain her title and will work with the three publicity teams under Miller’s supervision to expand and develop the Studio’s East Coast publicity activities. Schmidt joined Warner Bros. Pictures in 2002 after having served as a consultant to the Studio on such films as “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” and “Cats & Dogs.” Since then she has overseen publicity campaigns for movies including “The Last Samurai,” “Insomnia,” “Two Weeks Notice,” “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and “Malibu’s Most Wanted.” Prior to that she was head of publicity at Phoenix Pictures, working with studio marketing executives on such films as “The People Vs. Larry Flynt,” “The Mirror Has Two Faces” and “The Thin Red Line.” Earlier, Schmidt was Director of Program Publicity at Home Box Office, where she was responsible for publicizing titles including “Barbarians at the Gate” and “The Late Shift.” Schmidt is also an accomplished playwright whose award-winning works include “Without Reason,” “Heartaches,” “Crooks” and “The Dress.” “The Dress” recently opened at the WYO Theatre in Sheridan, Wyoming, the state’s oldest producing theater.
Fritz will head one of the three publicity teams based in Burbank and will be responsible for developing and overseeing the campaigns to open films being released by the Studio. She joins Warner Bros. Pictures from her position as head of publicity at Revolution Studios, where she oversaw the campaigns on such films as “XXX,” “Maid in Manhattan,” “Anger Management” and “Daddy Day Care.” Before coming to Revolution in 2002, Fritz spent three years as Vice President, Publicity and Marketing, for Roland Emmerich’s and Dean Devlin’s Centropolis Entertainment, developing campaigns for such films as “The Patriot” and “The Thirteenth Floor,” and earlier, was Executive Director of National Publicity at MGM. Fritz began her entertainment career at PMK as an assistant to Lois Smith.
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