Growing up, Matt Kaplan had two main interests. “Football and movies. That’s about all I did as a kid,” he said on the “Hollywood Unscripted” podcast, explaining that it wasn’t an unusual combination in his home city of Los Angeles. The future ACE Entertainment CEO continued to pursue his interests at Columbia University, majoring in film and becoming the football team’s freshman quarterback. While still in college, he interned at United Talent and, after graduation, worked for CBS. Eventually, Kaplan moved on to Lionsgate, where he assisted on the set of “The Hunger Games” — this began his long-standing interest in young adult projects. While still in his early 30s, Kaplan became the CEO of ACE Entertainment.
What’s more, we can thank Matt Kaplan for the popularity of Netflix’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.” As Cooper’s fiancé recounted on the “Hollywood Unscripted” podcast, he read the book, loved it, and cold-called its author, Jenny Han. Now, he and Alex Cooper are teaming up to center even more Gen-Z stories, launching “Trending,” an independent media venture. “ACE Entertainment’s success has everything to do with connecting to the audience, which is also one of Alex’s specialties,” Kaplan said in a statement via Variety, “The more we thought about it, the more it made sense to bring together ACE’s production and financing expertise with Alex’s ability to engage this influential community to curate new experiences.”
Post source: The List
