Blair Rich — the longtime Warner Bros. marketing veteran — has landed at Legendary.
Rich will join the Dune studio as its chief marketing and commercial officer, reporting directly to CEO Joshua Grode and head of production Mary Parent. In the role, she will be responsible for global marketing operations, including the application of new technologies.
The move marks Rich’s return to entertainment. She joins Legendary from a stint at Virgin Galactic, where she was charged with creating the company’s consumer-facing space tourism product as the chief business officer. Prior to this, Rich spent two decades in marketing at Warners, where she worked on campaigns for Harry Potter and the DC films, among other massive studio releases. She exited in 2020.
“Blair is a creative innovator. She brings an outstanding history of building some of the most dominant brands and entertainment franchises in the world,” said Grode. “Her addition to our best-in-class Legendary team, with her future-facing approach to global entertainment and her exceptional combination of strategic and creative expertise, will raise the bar for everyone at Legendary. We are now stronger than ever as we enter a new phase of our long-term strategic growth plan.”
Said Rich in a statement, “In Legendary’s next evolution, we are committed to engaging people in unique, memorable ways, fostering connections that inspire and elevate their experience with our brands while expanding and optimizing new business and revenue opportunities.”
Legendary’s upcoming features include the Minecraft movie with Warner Bros, a movie based on the popular video game Street Fighter, and an untitled Alejandro G. Iñárritu film starring Tom Cruise. In television, Legendary series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has been renewed for a second season by Apple.
In October, Legendary bought out the remaining equity interest held by Wanda Group. The company is solely owned by management and Apollo. Grode told THR of the move: “We think that there’s an opportunity to continue to create great content, both film and television and to expand what we’ve been doing in those areas. Not that we couldn’t do it before, but we now can do it through organic growth and through M&A.”
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