Book Publisher Macmillan Bolsters Film Shingle Run By Brendan Deneen

Macmillan Publishers has strengthened its commitment to shepherding film and TV adaptations of its book titles by forming Macmillan Entertainment. The division will be run by executive editor Brendan Deneen, who has been an editor since 2010 at the St. Martin’s Press imprint Thomas Dunne Books. This isn’t exactly a big revelation, considering that Deneen has been setting up film projects for Macmillan since 2010, when book, magazine and newspaper publishers really started seeing the revenue potential of holding onto ancillary rights and sharing in the riches of option deals.


Deneen came to publishing from the film business, starting as a development/production executive for Scott Rudin and for Bob and Harvey Weinstein. The label already has projects at MGM, Legendary Pictures, Sony Pictures Television, BenderSpink, and The Weinstein Company, among others. Editors throughout Macmillan are generating original ideas in conjunction with Macmillan Entertainment, developing them first as books and then into multimedia ventures, especially film and television. Macmillan Entertainment also works with literary agencies, negotiating film and TV deals on their behalf and assisting the creative development of existing and forthcoming Macmillan books into feature films and/or television series.

Just last week, Deneen set the sci-fi novel Day One with We’re The Millers producer Benderspink.

“Macmillan Entertainment was originally launched as Macmillan Films from within Thomas Dunne Books,” Macmillan Publishers CEO John Sargent said. “After several early successes, we decided to expand this strategy across the group. While we will be selective in our projects, Macmillan Entertainment will allow us to actively pursue film and TV opportunities, and Brendan’s experience will prove valuable to both our authors and editors.”
Deneen said: “I’m excited to further build Macmillan Entertainment and extend our reach into Hollywood. We’re working on a number of amazing projects and think this is a win-win scenario for authors, agents, editors, producers, and studios.”