Troubled indie distributor Row K Entertainment has pulled its presentation from the upcoming CinemaCon convention, the company told TheWrap on Tuesday.
The move comes amid the exits of president Megan Colligan and chief marketing officer Ben Carlson, as TheWrap reported last week, just seven months after the company’s launch, due to clashes with founders Christopher Woodrow and Raj Singh.
“As we’ve said, the release of ‘Dead Man’s Wire’ provided an important opportunity to evaluate and refine our strategy as a new entrant in a highly competitive marketplace,” Woodrow and Singh said in a statement to TheWrap on Tuesday.
“We’re now making a deliberate pivot toward a more commercially focused slate, and that process takes time to build thoughtfully — more than a few short weeks,” they continued. “With that in mind, we’ve made the decision to step back from CinemaCon this year and instead focus our resources on developing the next phase of our slate and team. We remain fully committed to our long-term vision and to our partners, and we look forward to returning to CinemaCon in 2027.”
Row K was to unveil its slate alongside Angel Studios and StudioCanal on the Main Stage as part of a new presentation at the theater owner convention, which will also feature heavyweights like Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony and Disney.
The indie distributor just pulled the release date of its next planned film, Maude Apatow’s “Poetic License,” because it could not fulfill its legal obligations on the film’s release, and it’s now being shopped to other buyers.
Row K still has a “Cliffhanger” reboot starring Lily James planned to release later this year, as well as the Emilia Jones/Nick Robinson romance “Charlie Harper,” which it picked up out of TIFF last year.
The departures of Colligan and Carlson came after Variety reported that Row K was having cash flow issues, with vendors and consultants not being paid in months.
