Jon Oakes Joins Hammerstone Studios As President Of Production And Development

EXCLUSIVE: Jon Oakes has joined Alex Lebovici’s Hammerstone Studios as President of Production and Development, Deadline can exclusively reveal.

Oakes joins from Bold Films, where he worked for more than a decade, most recently as EVP of Development and Productions. During his time at the studio, he played an instrumental role in the development and production of such acclaimed films as The Guilty, Oslo, Colette, Whiplash, Nightcrawler, Drive, Stronger and Vox Lux.

Prior to his time at Bold Films, Oakes was at Andrew Lazar’s Mad Chance Productions, working as a VP on titles like Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper. Prior to that, he held in development at Original Film and Phoenix Pictures, having begun his career as an executive assistant at WME after graduating from UCLA.

A genre-focused production and financing entity founded in 2018, Hammerstone has thus far worked on nearly 20 films, including 2020’s Bill and Ted Face the Music, 20th Century Studios’ critically acclaimed 2022 horror pic Barbarian, starring Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long and Georgina Campbell, and the action thriller Sympathy for the Devil starring Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman

Most recently, the company produced the action thriller Boy Kills World starring Bill Skarsgård, which will release wide in theaters via Roadside Attractions on April 26, and the horror thriller Don’t Move, starring Kelsey Asbille and Finn Wittrock, which Netflix recently snapped up. Hammerstone’s upcoming slate also includes Mel Gibson’s Flight Risk — his first directorial effort since the Academy Award nominated Hacksaw Ridge, which stars Mark Wahlberg.