EXCLUSIVE: Aditya Sood has been promoted to President of Lord Miller — the production company of Academy Award-winning filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) — with Dan Shear joining as EVP and head of Television.
These strategic moves are described as a natural evolution for Lord Miller, which has continued to expand in both film and television over the past several years — recently seeing Universal release their Elizabeth Banks-directed comedy Cocaine Bear, with four other projects coming up for release this year.
Regarded as having a strong eye for standout original material, Sood has been with Lord Miller as President of Film since 2019, and will now expand his oversight to include all aspects of the company including television, adding to his existing responsibilities for overseeing their film efforts.
Shear comes to Lord Miller from Peacock, where he served as EVP of Comedy Development, and will now be responsible for running the day-to-day operations of the company’s television department.
Lord and Miller said in a statement to Deadline that “Aditya and Dan are two of the most talented, committed, and just plain smart minds in the entertainment industry. Having been close friends with Aditya for over 25 years, we are continuously in awe of not only his taste and ability to identify new material, but most importantly the character with which he always conducts business.
Added the Lord Miller principals: “It is our goal at Lord Miller to build a company full of original thinkers who see creative opportunities in unique places and are in it for the long haul and the right reasons. Not only is this the very definition of Aditya, but when we met Dan, we immediately knew he operates the same way. His knowledge of the television landscape, the depth of his relationships and his reputation far preceded him. We are lucky to being able to work with both of them.”
During his time at Lord Miller, Sood has produced not only the hit original Cocaine Bear, which has grossed over $75M worldwide since its February release, but also Uni’s upcoming animated comedy Strays starring Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, which hits theaters June 9th. He’s also an EP on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — Sony’s follow-up to their acclaimed animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which brought Lord and Miller their first Oscars in 2019. The new film, continuing the story of web-slinger Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), hits theaters on June 2nd.
Prior to his time at Lord Miller, Sood was President of Film at Simon Kinberg’s production company Genre Films. He there produced Fox’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of Andy Weir’s The Martian, a novel that he’s credited with discovering and bringing to the company. He also exec produced the massively successful Deadpool and its sequel, Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, and three seasons of the hit ABC/Netflix series, Designated Survivor.
Prior to Genre Films, Sood ran Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald’s production company, Parkes-MacDonald, also serving for a time as Vice President of Production for Warner Bros. Pictures.
Shear’s time at Peacock had him overseeing the development and production of the platform’s first slate of comedies including Girls5Eva, Rutherford Falls, Saved by the Bell, MacGruber and The Amber Ruffin Show. He previously worked at Universal Television as VP, and later SVP of Comedy Development, developing such popular NBC comedies as The Good Place, Superstore and AP Bio, along with streaming series for the studio including Russian Doll, Little America and Never Have I Ever.
Shear began his career at WME, where he represented a wide range of writers, directors, producers and writer-performers. Notable clients included Loren Bouchard, Katie Dippold, Billy Eichner, Eliza Clark, Liz Flahive, W. Kamau Bell, Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg.
In addition to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Strays, Lord Miller will next release the second season of Apple TV+’s starry murder mystery comedy The Afterparty, as well as a modern refresh of Lord and Miller’s cult classic animated series, Clone High. The company with a first-look features deal with Universal and an expansive overall TV deal with Sony Pictures Television is also currently at work on features including the Ryan Gosling-led MGM pic Project Hail Mary, to be directed by Lord and Miller; New Regency’s Artemis, based on the bestselling novel by Weir; and Lionsgate’s 48 Hours with Dennis Rodman starring Jonathan Majors.
Lord Miller is also producing multiple live-action series based on Spider-Man characters for Amazon, including Silk, which is being written by showrunner Angela Kang (The Walking Dead), and an Untitled Spider-Man Noir Project to be penned by Oren Uziel.
