Michelle Hooper is leaving Searchlight Pictures as executive vice president of marketing after two decades with the company.
Since joining in 2006, Hooper’s work on publicity, awards and creative marketing helped earn the studio nearly 200 Oscar nominations and more than 130 Golden Globe nominations. Of those 200, Searchlight took home 49 wins, including best picture winners “Nomadland,” “The Shape of Water,” “Birdman,” “12 Years a Slave” and “Slumdog Millionaire.” Searchlight also received best picture nominations at the Golden Globes for the aforementioned titles, in addition to 15 others.
This awards season, Hooper was leading campaigns for “Wild Horse Nine” and “Behemonth!,” among other titles.
“She’s a stellar leader for her creative insights and keen ability to read a film for where it fits in the zeitgeist, in turn setting her team up for wide-reaching success,” said a longtime colleague. “But she’s also an equally formidable collaborator, one who can close a campaign with all the insights gained from keeping her ear to the ground and hearing feedback in real time. It’s a loss for the studio, but I guarantee you it will be another’s gain.”
Earlier in her career, Hooper worked at CBS Entertainment as the director of entertainment communications and aided in the “Survivor” publicity strategy; she also spent four years at Fox Broadcast as the company’s VP of entertainment publicity, where she worked on campaigns for shows like “The Simpsons,” “Arrested Development” and “American Idol.”
Hooper was featured in Variety’s 2025 Women’s Impact Report alongside fellow Searchlight executives Rebecca Kearey, DanTram Nguyen and Katie Goodson-Thomas, whose work to ensure the studio had a stellar year at the Oscars was highlighted.
“The team’s marketing mojo led to 10 Academy Award nominations for ‘A Complete Unknown’ and ‘A Real Pain,’ including a best supporting actor win for Kieran Culkin’s performance in the Jesse Eisenberg film,” wrote Variety.
In a joint statement, the team explained that Searchlight’s adventurous choices and deep filmmaker relationships help the company weather the challenges of the business by “trusting [that] audiences still want films that entertain, challenge and provoke.”
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