Buddy Marini, who was appointed head of the Japan studio in March, spoke at a Tokyo International Film Festival TIFFCOM market session on Wednesday. Marini oversees homegrown film, series and anime productions for the company.
Before joining Amazon, Marini served as managing director of Warner Bros. Discovery Japan and was the CEO of Hulu Japan. He also founded Mangamo.
The studio's current slate includes "The Apothecary Diaries" and "Bless". Producer Matsuhashi, who joined Wowow in 1994, produced "Kokuho" last year.
Matsuhashi made his producing debut with "Battle Royale" and later went independent in 2005. He started Credeus about 8 years ago and has produced the "Kingdom" period action series, the "Gintama" action comedy series, "Blue Lock", and "Golden Kamuy".
Films produced by Matsuhashi passed JPY100 billion in cumulative box office this year. Matsuhashi said, "I realized I wouldn’t be able to make the kind of work I envisioned unless I did that, so that’s the choice I made."
Maeda, the executive producer of the Netflix live-action series "One Piece", worked on "Lost," "The X-Files" and "Lie to Me". Maeda is currently partnering with Tiff Greshler and Hivemind Entertainment to adapt "Monstress" for Amazon Prime Video.
