Yair Landau to Depart Sony Pictures

CULVER CITY, March 14:
After serving as the president of the digital division at Sony Pictures
Entertainment for nearly ten years, Yair Landau is planning to leave the studio
in April.

Landau, who has been with
Sony Pictures for 17 years, is planning a new games and animation venture to
develop and produce content for use across all media. He will continue working
with Sony Pictures as an executive producer of Cloudy With A Chance Of
Meatballs, an animated feature
scheduled for release in 2009.

Landau said a further
announcement regarding his new venture will come in the near future. He is also
accepting offers to join the boards of several businesses and is planning to
make investments in media, entertainment and technology companies. Prior to
being named president of Sony Pictures Digital in 1999, Landau served as the
executive VP of corporate development and vice chairman of Sony Pictures.

Landau established Sony
Pictures Animation in 2002. Along with Penney Finkelman Cox and Sandra Rabins,
they assembled a team of animation filmmakers to produce all CG-animated
feature films. Sony Pictures Animation's first two features, Open Season, released in 2006, and 2007's Surf's Up, have together accumulated close to $350 million
in worldwide box office revenue. Surf's Up received an Academy Award nomination for best animated feature film
of the year in 2008.

Under the direction of
Landau and the leadership of its president, Tim Sarnoff, Sony Pictures Imageworks
developed into a state-of-the-art digital-animation and visual-effects company
that creates CGI for motion pictures. In 2003, Imageworks' first animated
short, The Chubb Chubbs!, won
an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. In 2005, the visual effects and
animation team at Imageworks was honored with an Academy Award for achievement
in visual effects for Spider-Man 2.

Additionally, Landau has
helped launch some of the studio's earliest ventures on the Internet and
internationally, including Screenblast, an early user-generated video website;
Movielink, a multi-studio video download service; and, in conjunction with Sony
Pictures Television International, a television channel in India.

"When Yair came to us
a few months ago and said he was ready to move on, we wanted him to stay, but
it became clear that he wanted to do on the outside what he had been doing here
on the inside for so long and so well—building a new business in the
new-media environment," said Michael Lynton, the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures. "He helped bring us into
the digital age with the Sony Pictures Digital division, which has served as
our very own new-media incubator. His strategic vision, technological savvy and
business acumen helped us keep pace with the rapid changes affecting our
industry."

"I have been proud to
work with a colleague as creative and innovative as Yair,” added Amy Pascal,
the co-chairman of Sony Pictures. "From his role in helping to bring the Spider-Man franchise to our studio to his leadership of our
digital division, Yair has left an indelible mark on our company and this
industry."

According to Lynton and
Pascal, a replacement for Landau in the studio's digital division will be named
soon.

—By Irene Lew