Film Executive Held in Fatal Crash After Movie Premiere

One studio executive was killed early Wednesday morning in a traffic accident a few hours after the premiere of a movie he helped develop, and another film executive was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter.

Lewis Cherot, 26, a director of development at 20th Century Fox, was pronounced dead at the scene in Brentwood, police said.

Dylan Sellers, 36, an executive vice president of production at Fox, was booked early Wednesday morning on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of an intoxicant. He was released on bail.

Cherot and Sellers attended a studio premiere of the movie “Strange Days” at a theater in Westwood, a studio spokesman said. Cherot helped “shepherd the film to production,” the spokesman said. The two left the theater about 10:30 p.m. in Sellers’ BMW, friends said. Two hours later Sellers smashed into a tree in Brentwood.

“Lewis was one of the brightest and most creative development executives in the business,” said Jeffrey Godsick, a senior vice president for Fox. “He had an extremely bright future.”

Cherot graduated from Harvard College in 1990 and moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked as an assistant for a group of agents and then took a job as an assistant to producer Cathleen Summers at Summers-Quaid Productions, based at TriStar Pictures.

He was a director of development at Fox for two years, where he worked on a number of movies.