EXCLUSIVE: Change is once again afoot at Peter Chernin’s North Road Company with international President Jan Frouman exiting after three years as part of a restructure in London.
Frouman, who left last month, is one of a number who has exited North Road’s London base, we understand. Several more junior staff were laid off. Frouman will not be replaced like-for-like and his place leading North Road’s international scripted efforts will be taken by L.A-based North Road President Scott Manson along with the North Road scripted teams and Chernin Entertainment. The UK hub of North Road label Kinetic Content, which opened earlier this year in London under Too Hot to Handle co-creator Laura Gibson, is staying put and continues to build, insiders said.
Frouman, a former Red Arrow Studios boss and head of Will Smith’s Westbrook International, was hired by Chernin in 2022 as Chernin formed North Road and paid $200M for Red Arrow Studios’ U.S. assets including Love is Blind producer Kinetic. Frouman’s LinkedIn indicates that he left North Road last month and has since become a strategic advisor to Israeli studio Sipur, a long-term partner of North Road’s. North Road declined comment.
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Frouman was President of international at North Road since its inception and ran the operation from the UK capital. During his tenure, North Road worked on splashy international co-pros including Israeli shows Bad Boy and Heart of a Killer (both with Sipur), along with Brazil’s Suture. It also bought Turkish indie Karga Seven and Mexico’s Perro Azul, while overseeing the opening of Kinetic’s UK hub.
North Road was consistently rumored to be in the running for bigger international M&A plays such as All3Media but these did not come to pass and at times things have felt slow going internationally, while high-profile executives such as Kristin Jones and Caroline Hollick exited during Frouman’s tenure. A number of his support staff have left in the past few weeks, we are told. In the U.S., North Road is behind the likes of Ford v Ferrari, Love is Blind and The Last Dance. Upcoming projects include The Body and Man on Fire for Netflix.
The news comes as yet another tortuorous round of layoffs hits the U.S., most recently at Paramount-Skydance, Amazon and Fifth Season, with redundancies expected to hit Paramount internationally imminently.