Full-service business agency GALE has hired 18-year Razorfish veteran Patrick Frend as managing director. Frend will be joining GALE’s global management team to help shape the agency’s service offering and grow its global business. Frend will be reporting to GALE’s president and CEO Brad Simms.
“GALE’s connected agency and consultancy offering is a great fit for Pat–a former management consultant and agency veteran with vast expertise across automotive, financial services, CPG, travel, and retail,” said Simms.
Prior to joining GALE, Frend served as president, East Region of Razorfish, managing its New York, Atlanta, and Toronto business. In this role, he handled a $150-million P&L and oversaw more than 600 employees, working with clients including: Mercedes-Benz, Ford Motor Company, UNIQLO, Delta Airlines, Unilever, and Citibank.
“GALE’s seamless integration of business consulting and creative expertise, along with the agency’s long-term vision, inspired me to join the team” said Frend. “Many aspire to adopt that model, but GALE pioneered it three and half years ago and has proven its value out with brands including BMW, BMO, and Genting. GALE is about the same size and age as the organization I joined the last time I made a change 18 years ago; I look forward to looking back on how I’ve contributed to GALE 18 years from now.”
Headquartered in New York with offices in Toronto and Bangalore, GALE brings together the strongest aspects of the agency and consultancy models and supports this through proprietary data and insights platforms including ASK GALE and ALCHEMY. GALE’s clients include: BMW, Bank of Montreal, Allstate, MGM, Hain Celestial, Genting, and David’s Bridal.
“Mickey 17” Tops Weekend Box Office, But Profitability Is A Long Way Off
"Parasite" filmmaker Bong Joon Ho's original science fiction film "Mickey 17" opened in first place on the North American box office charts. According to studio estimates Sunday, the Robert Pattinson-led film earned $19.1 million in its first weekend in theaters, which was enough to dethrone "Captain America: Brave New World" after a three-week reign.
Overseas, "Mickey 17" has already made $34.2 million, bringing its worldwide total to $53.3 million. But profitability for the film is a long way off: It cost a reported $118 million to produce, which does not account for millions spent on marketing and promotion.
A week following the Oscars, where "Anora" filmmaker Sean Baker made an impassioned speech about the importance of the theatrical experience – for filmmakers to keep making movies for the big screens, for distributors to focus on theatrical releases and for audiences to keep going – "Mickey 17" is perhaps the perfect representation of this moment in the business, or at least an interesting case study. It's an original film from an Oscar-winning director led by a big star that was afforded a blockbuster budget and given a robust theatrical release by Warner Bros., one of the few major studios remaining. But despite all of that, and reviews that were mostly positive (79% on RottenTomatoes), audiences did not treat it as an event movie, and it may ultimately struggle to break even.
Originally set for release in March 2024, Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to the Oscar-winning "Parasite" faced several delays, which he has attributed to extenuating circumstances around the Hollywood strikes. Based on the novel "Mickey7" by Edward Ashton, Pattinson plays an expendable employee who dies on missions and is re-printed time and time again. Steven... Read More