I guess this was inevitable, but it doesn’t make it any less unfortunate.  Following the devastating hack into Sony Pictures, which included the dissemination of candid emails between the studio’s top executives, it was announced today that co-chairman Amy Pascal will be stepping down from her post.  Per THR, Pascal will remain at the studio in a different capacity, launching her own production venture housed at Sony—a common move when top execs get the boot.  Also as part of her exit deal, Pascal will be a producer on any new Spider-Man movies as well as the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot.

As the top dog at Sony, Pascal shouldered much of the blame for the fallout of the hack, which wasn’t helped by the fact that revealing (not to mention private) emails from her account were a major focus of the hubbub that followed. She responded admirably, taking the hack in stride and finding a way to get The Interview out to audiences, but given that Sony Pictures Entertainment is first and foremost a business, a changing of the guards seemed likely in order to reassure stockholders.

Pascal built up an impressive resume during her tenure at Sony Pictures, during which she oversaw the rebooting of the James Bond franchise with Casino Royale and also took risks on more challenging films like The Social Network, Zero Dark Thirty, and Moneyball, which paid off in the form of prestige.

But lately, Sony has been struggling.  Their costly efforts to launch a franchise with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo failed to take off, and the rebooted Spider-Man series bottomed out with last year’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  Even a sure-thing like White House Down was a flop, and while the studio developed the highly anticipated Steve Jobs for years, Pascal ultimately butted heads with producer Scott Rudin over casting and budget, leading Rudin to pick up the picture and move it to Universal.

But still, I really admired Pascal’s willingness to take risks, and she was one of the few film executives that still felt like a creative instead of a business-minded MBA-holder only focused on the bottom line.  Her absence will surely be felt, as Sony will likely next install someone focused on safe-bet franchise filmmaking, with the priority being course-correcting the Spider-Man franchise.