Executives leave as Xbox Studios winds down

Nancy Tellem

Nancy Tellem and Jordan Levin have left Xbox Entertainment Studios, the content division launched, and subsequently scrapped, by software giant Microsoft.

Microsoft said the Xbox Studios unit was closing in July as part of deep job cuts at the US-listed company.

At that time Studios president Tellem and executive VP, Levin, were tipped to stay on and see through original projects already in production. However, both have now left the company, according to various US sources.

The Xbox content unit’s projects included a new series based on the Halo games franchise, a doc about Atari called Signal to Noise and Humans, a copro with Channel 4 in the UK. It was also working on Winterworld, a live-action series based on the Chuck Dixon and artist Jorge Zaffino comic book series.

Jordan Levin

There were also TV projects based on the Gears of War and Age of Empires games.

The rights to these projects and others in development are understood to have mostly reverted to their owners.

Tellem, who joined Microsoft in 2012, is the former president of entertainment at US broadcast net CBS. Levin was CEO of the WB Network before launching digital producer Generate.