Brian Morewitz & Melanie Frankel Named Heads Of Creative For Kapital Entertainment As Aaron Kaplan’s Company Bulks Up With Hires & Promotions

EXCLUSIVE: Former ABC head of drama Brian Morewitz and former ABC Signature head of comedy Melanie Frankel have joined Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment as Heads Of Creative. Morewitz and Frankel will each run the artistic and work throughout comedy and drama, spearheading initiatives from inception via on-air run as government producers.

The duo will lead Kapital’s improvement crew, which incorporates the corporate’s artistic executives Jessie Abbott and Kevin Marco — each of whom have been promoted to VP — in addition to Evan Terrell who has joined Kapital as artistic government.

Additionally, Kapital has introduced in Matt Conner as VP of Production, reporting to the corporate’ head of manufacturing Michael Lohmann, and has promoted Sean Richards, who works for Kapital’s head of enterprise affairs Sandra Ortiz, to VP of Business Affairs.

The slew of hires and promotions come as Kapital kicks off 2022 with 4 new sequence premieres this week — NBC comedy American Auto is making a daily time slot debut tonight after a December preview; ABC restricted sequence Women Of the Movement and companion docuseries Let the World See each premiere Thursday, Jan. 6; and Fox comedy Pivoting debuts Sunday, Jan. 9.

The firm present roster options 10 sequence: Women Of the Movement, Fox animated comedy Housebroken and the upcoming Hulu drama Black Cake, on which Kapital is the studio; ABC’s A Million Little Things, on which it’s co-studio; in addition to American Auto, Let the World See, Pivoting, CBS’ The Neighborhood, Showtime’s The Chi and the upcoming Starz horror comedy Shining Vale. Additionally, Kaplan government produces Netflix’s International Emmy-winning drama Delhi Crime.

The massive quantity of manufacturing along with persevering with lively improvement and promoting to all platforms (Kapital now has sequence throughout all 4 main broadcast networks in addition to premium cable and streaming) is behind the growth of the chief crew at Kapital, which was launched by Kaplan as one-person operation in 2009.

The dimension of Kapital’s portfolio and Kaplan’s progress ambitions have been additionally the rationale behind the choice to usher in two seasoned executives, Morewitz and Frankel, as government producer/Head of Creative. (They succeed Dana Honor, who left last month after 5 years on the firm.) Both Morewitz and Frankel have labored with Kaplan and Kapital of their most up-to-date positions at Disney; Morewitz was the corporate’s community associate on Women Of the Movement and A Million Little Things; Frankel was Kapital’s studio associate on American Housewife and AMLT.

VPs Abbott and Marco, who can be working with Morewitz and Frankel, are the chief in command of A Million Little Things, Shining Vale, Women of the Movement, Pivoting and Black Cake (Abbott) and American Auto and Housebroken (Marco).

Conner is segueing to his new position as VP of Production for Kapital after serving because the Production Manger on the corporate’s Women of the Movement. Based in Los Angeles, Conner can be working for Kaplan’s longtime manufacturing associate, Lohmann, who relies in Nashville the place Kaplan and Lohmann management 150,000 sq. toes of levels, used within the filming of the Kapital’s CBS All Access sequence Tell Me a Story.

“Brian and Melanie usually are not simply wonderful executives – they’re additionally good mates, and I’m past thrilled that they are going to be main our rising artistic crew, which can also be welcoming Evan as a member,” Kaplan stated. “The well-deserved promotions of Jessie, Kevin and Sean are a testomony to their nice work, and including Matt because the VP of Michaels manufacturing crew will permit us to be much more environment friendly, versatile and considerate when making content material.”

During his five-year tenure as SVP, Head of Drama Development at ABC Entertainment, Morewitz oversaw the event and manufacturing of all drama pilots and restricted sequence and the launch of latest drama sequence for the community. During his tenure as Head of Drama, ABC added such hit sequence as The Good Doctor, Station 19, The Rookie, A Million Little Things and Big Sky. Morewitz joined ABC as VP Drama Development in November 2004. In that position, he developed and oversaw profitable sequence corresponding to Castle, Quantico, Revenge, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nashville and Brothers and Sisters in addition to the Emmy-winning American Crime.

Before becoming a member of ABC, Morewitz was SVP of Escape Artists, the place he helped develop characteristic movies, together with Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage and S.W.A.T. Previously he held different improvement positions inside the movement image trade, together with SVP at Black and Blu Entertainment. He started his profession as Story Editor for New Line Cinema.

As Head of Comedy at ABC Signature, Frankel developed throughout varied streaming and community platforms. During her tenure, the studio obtained pilot and sequence orders at Hulu, Freeform, Apple and ABC.

Frankel began her Disney profession in 2004 as comedy coordinator at ABC. She then segued to ABC Studios (now Signature) and labored within the studio’s Comedy Department from 2007-2011, earlier than leaving to grow to be head of Comedy Development for USA Network. There, she developed the sequence Playing House, Sirens and Benched, earlier than returning to ABC Studios to work as VP within the Current Department from 2015-19 overlaying each comedies and dramas. She has additionally labored in improvement at Imagine and Grammnet.

Conner launched his producing profession on ABC’s Surviving Suburbia starring Bob Saget. Since then, he has labored as a Producer and Production Manager on quite a lot of multi-camera and single-camera productions for NBC, ABC Family, Nickelodeon, Facebook, Starz, Netflix and ABC, together with 4 seasons because the Producer of The Exes with Kristen Johnston and Donald Faison for TV Land. He was the Supervising Producer for CMT’s Still the King, shot on location in Nashville.

Prior to becoming a member of Kapital, Richards was Director of Business and Legal Affairs at Michael Eisner’s Tornante Television, the place he labored on such reveals as BoJack Horseman, Tuca & Bertie and Undone.

Terrell was most just lately a Senior Coordinator at Hasbro and previous to that was a manufacturing coordinator at TruTV.