Warner’s Production Chief to Also Oversee Distribution

Warner Brothers yesterday named Jeff Robinov, its head of film production, to be the president of a newly created Warner Brothers Pictures Group, which will manage the company’s filmmaking operation along with worldwide theatrical marketing and distribution.

The authority to approve motion pictures will remain solely in the hands of Alan F. Horn, president and chief operating officer of Warner Brothers, although Mr. Horn said he would spend more time focusing on new businesses and new territories with Barry M. Meyer, the company’s chairman and chief executive. Mr. Robinov’s promotion will presumably create room for his longtime deputy, Kevin McCormick, to succeed him.

Mr. Robinov, 49, benefited from a similar shuffle in 2002. When Lorenzo di Bonaventura, his predecessor, was made a corporate Warner Brothers executive vice president and given responsibility for both physical production and domestic marketing, Mr. Robinov was given the production chief’s title. (Mr. di Bonaventura left soon after for unrelated reasons.)

This promotion, to take effect in January, will give Mr. Robinov, a 10-year veteran of the studio, oversight of departments led by far more senior executives, as well as of Warner Independent Pictures, the studio’s specialty division. He will oversee physical production, postproduction and theatrical music, and will share responsibility for the direct-to-video unit, Warner Premiere, with the company’s home entertainment group.

Mr. Horn credited Mr. Robinov with having shaped the studio’s “event-film strategy” and said he would be charged among other things with improving communication and wringing new efficiencies out of the studio. Mr. Robinov did not venture to say where those efficiencies might be found. “I’m just trying to get to January,” he said.

Warner Brothers, part of Time Warner, has had a solid but unexceptional year at the domestic box office, so far placing third in market share behind Paramount and Sony on the strength of the latest “Harry Potter” installment and the surprise hit “300.”