Both companies have been busy in the docu space, and the move will give more autonomy.
Imagine Documentaries president Sara Bernstein runs the division, andJustin Wilkes, who is Imagine president.
Imagine will handle creative and production, while Fifth Season will handle sales and distribution.
(L-R) Richard Avedon, Ron Howard, Martin Short & Lawrence KasdanGetty/Michael Buckner/Deadline/Caitlin Cronenberg/Getty
Fifth Seasons Non-Scripted division is run by EVP Mary Lisio.
Fifth Seasons docu output includesBeing Mary Tyler MooreandMcCartney 3,2,1.
Graham, Chris, Mary over there, theyre class acts, Wilkes said.
From left: Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short in ‘Only Murders in the Building’Hulu
Theyve got exceptional taste and their brand ladders up very nicely to the Imagine brand.
We have a shared sensibility and I think how we see the landscape right now.
Looking at the landscape right now, things are slow.
People are not buying as much and as big, and this is across the whole board.
Yet we believe that theres still a huge audience that appreciates premium, well-told stories and big IP.
We just feel like were going to be in a much better position strategically.
Avedon very quickly in his career became the definitive portrait photographer of the 20th century, Wilkes told Deadline.
He really informed what we as a society and a culture looked at as celebrity and fashion.
He really in a way invented that.
And on a personal basis, his whole life was sort of a quest for identity.
That includes one of the last picture sessions taken with Marilyn Monroe.
He asks her, what do you like to do more than anything?
She says, I love to dance.
I never get to dance anymore.
Richard says, you should dance.
So he puts on some music, which he was famous for.
A lot of his fashion photography always had movement in it.
He wasnt a choreographer, but he would get up there with the subjects and he would move.
And as she was dancing, he was photographing it.
You see this through all the photos, and at the very end, shes exhausted.
He had her dancing for two hours.
She was exhausted but exhilarated.
Kasdan had done the ILM docu Light & Magic for Imagine, and pitched the docu on Short.
Wilkes said he got an immediate yes.
Marty hadnt even re-emerged again as even someone currently on TV, Wilkes said.
