YouTube’s head of scripted programming, Jon Wax, is in talks to join Amazon Studios, according to an individual with knowledge of the matter.
Wax is said to be in discussions for head of genre programming at Amazon, a position held by Sharon Tal Yguado until recently. Variety reported on her exit in early May. The genre unit at the studio focuses on sci-fi, fantasy and genre series; the forthcoming “Lord of the Rings” is a major title within the genre head’s purview.
Amazon Studios declined to comment.
Wax joined YouTube in August 2017, leading drama, unscripted and current programming for YouTube’s premium channel, after four years at WGN America and Tribune Studios. Prior to that, he had spent nearly 15 years at Twentieth Century Fox TV and Fox Broadcasting.
YouTube’s “Cobra Kai” series, featuring Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, has been one of its most popular scripted series to date, and recently earned a third-season renewal at YouTube Premium. But a number of YouTube originals, including “Champaign ILL,” “Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television,” “Sideswiped,” and “Do You Want to See a Dead Body,” have been canceled. And the darkly comedic one-hour series starring Kirsten Dunst, “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” has moved from YouTube to Showtime (after first originating at AMC), where it will premiere in late August.