Why Paramount Has Sold Off 4 Films Already This Year
Paramount, one of Hollywood’s most cherished movie brands, has found itself between a rock and a hard place during the coronavirus pandemic: battling the short-term challenges of an industry-wide production shutdown while still aiming for its long-term plan to turn around the moribund studio. After three years under the leadership of former Fox Studios chairman Jim Gianopulos, the studio has during the pandemic sold five of its films, ranging from projects at the script stage to finished features. The studio has also brought in Apple to help finance Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a $200 million-plus period thriller starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. (Five films represents nearly half of the studio’s recent annual release slate; the studio has average 11 films per year since 2016 and just nine in 2019.) In the past five months, Netflix bought from Paramount an untitled Ryan Reynolds/Shawn Levy adventure film, Aaron Sorkin’s fact-based drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and the rom-com “The Lovebirds,” while Michael B. Jordan’s “Without Remorse” is bound for Amazon Studios. In June, Lionsgate picked up the Mark Wahlberg adventure drama “Arthur the King” that Paramount had been in negotiations to acquire though the deal...
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