United Entertainment Group (UEG), a global entertainment, sports and lifestyle marketing agency, made three new hires for its senior leadership team to support the shop’s continued international growth and expansion of its sports and licensing business. Joining the marketing agency will be industry veterans Thomas Caravella, as SVP of licensing, Michael Brown, as EVP of sports, and Tim Collins, as managing director of UEG’s UK office.
Caravella brings 30 years of global experience in trademark licensing to his new role at UEG. As SVP of licensing, he will build on UEG’s core entertainment and sports licensing operations to expand the agency’s client representation across the growing licensing category. Prior to joining UEG, Caravella held positions such as VP of marketing and licensing at Disney Consumer Products and SVP, global licensing at Diageo.
Brown joins UEG as a senior executive with over 20 years’ experience in developing integrated marketing programs for major agencies including Lagardére Sports and IMG Worldwide. As EVP of sports, Brown will be charged with business development to drive global growth.
As the new managing director of UEG’s UK office, Collins will focus on helping clients pivot into pop culture through sports and entertainment verticals. Collins brings 20 years of sports sponsorship and PR experience to UEG, having worked on both the client side and at agencies bringing to life campaigns around major sporting tournaments including Budweiser’s FIFA partnership and MasterCard’s Priceless Rugby World Cup campaign.
“Our people hail from every facet of our industry that sets the cultural agenda, and their deep expertise is our formula for success,” said Jarrod Moses, founder and CEO of UEG. “Tim, Tom and Michael are perfect additions to our executive team. Their hires represent our continued investment in the areas of sports and licensing, as well as our commitment to providing exclusive intel and access to clients on a global scale.”
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More