Paramount Pictures cutting 60 jobs

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Paramount Pictures and its art-house division Paramount Vantage will cut about 60 staffers as part of a consolidation announced last month, officials said Thursday.

The studios are combining their marketing, distribution and physical production departments, which will additionally serve DreamWorks Pictures, MTV Films, Nickelodeon Movies and distribution partners Marvel and DreamWorks Animation.

"As part of that process, we analyzed areas of redundancies and today, we announced we would be eliminating about 60 positions across the company," Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures, and John Lesher, president of Paramount Film Group, wrote in an internal memo.

Viacom-owned Paramount has had a strong year at the box office with such films as "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," but both were produced by outside filmmakers, Marvel Studios and George Lucas, respectively, limiting Paramount's upside. Paramount's last big self-produced movie was the Mike Myers bomb "The Love Guru."

Paramount Vantage teamed with Miramax last year on the Oscar-winning movies "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country For Old Men."

A big challenge for Paramount is the expected departure of the team that runs its DreamWorks division, including DreamWorks principal Steven Spielberg. He and DreamWorks CEO Stacey Snider are in talks to set up a new production label with independent financing. DreamWorks produced such Paramount releases as "Disturbia" and "Blades of Glory."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter