The Bentonville, Arkansas/Hollywood, California Connection

There is a short, seemingly routine executive shuffle article in today's Wall Street Journal that means much more in Hollywood than first meets the eye: Wal-Mart vice president David Porter is leaving the company after 25 years and is expected to take a job overseeing world-wide product distribution for DreamWorks Animation. The reason why this move is worth mentioning is because over the past few years Porter has quietly become one of Hollywood's most significant players--even though he was based in Bentonville, Arkansas. Back when I worked at Premiere Magazine, we gave Porter high placement on our 2005 Power List (just in front of producer Brian Grazer). Here's what the entry said:

Call it the Red State revenge on True Blue Hollywood: the road to digital nirvana now leads straight to Bentonville, Arkansas, the headquarters of retailing behemoth Wal-Mart. Revenues from DVD sales were an astounding $16 billion in 2004 and upward of 22 percent of all DVDs were sold at Wal-Mart. Those kind of numbers make Porter, the executive who decides how many of which movies Wal-Mart orders for its shelves, the top dog outside of Tinseltown, and Wal-Mart HQ the new mecca for studio executives. Currently, there are daily nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Bentonville's nearest airport, but none to Arkansas's capital, Little Rock. After millions of DVDs of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ were sold at Wal-Mart, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment revved up their marketing of other Christian-friendly movies. But there's still a bit of edge to Hollywood's Wal-Mart worship: in Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Johnny Depp's character faces off against the mammoth East India Trading Company, which is trying to put small-time pirates out of business. YES IT'S TRUE: Over at Marvel, Wall-Mart is known as "God."

The Wall Street Journal updates those figures to as much as 40% (of all DVD sales) and says that Porter's successor has yet to be been named. Here's more from about Porter from the WSJ piece:

His departure comes amid Wal-Mart's overhaul of its product-selection and -presentation efforts under John E. Fleming, who was named chief merchandising officer in January. Mr. Fleming recently put new executives for women's apparel and home-furnishings operations.

Mr. Porter is expected to take a job overseeing world-wide product distribution for DreamWorks, according to a person familiar with the situation. A spokesman for DreamWorks, of Glendale, Calif., declined to comment.

Mr. Porter, who rose through the ranks and spent a total of 25 years at Wal-Mart, became its top liaison to the entertainment industry, helping craft exclusive packages and distribution deals with studios and artists. In recent years, he led the company's selection of movie, music, videogame and wireless-entertainment products. Mr. Porter also pressed Wal-Mart's interests on DVD pricing and timing of releases.

Wal-Mart doesn't divulge its CD or DVD sales, but the retailer's approximately 7,000 stores world-wide are believed to account for about 16% of music-CD and as much as 40% of DVD sales.

DreamWorks Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg has been a regular attendee at Wal-Mart's annual holiday-sales kickoffs, accompanying the actors who gave voice to DreamWorks' animated films.

Mr. Porter's wife, Charlyn Jarrells Porter, a vice president of Wal-Mart and head of its diversity office, will remain with the company, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said.