Paramount Pictures Is Hollywood’s Comeback Kid
Under Jim Gianopulos, the Viacom-owned movie studio is making money again — just in time for a merger with CBS.
Mission: Impossible — save a Hollywood studio.
Photographer: Paramount Pictures
Looking back on his 1994 victory in the fierce battle for the Paramount Pictures film studio, Sumner Redstone proclaimed some years later, “This so-called deal from hell — which is what they called it — became a helluva deal.”
But “they” were right. When Redstone made those remarks, Paramount’s best days were already behind it. The last time the studio would lead the U.S. box office was in 1997 with “Titanic.” By 2017, its share of ticket sales had shrunk to 4.8 percent, down from about 16 percent a decade earlier. In its most desperate moments, Redstone’s Viacom Inc. nearly sold off a piece of Paramount to help pay down debt. And today, Viacom itself is worth little more than the $10 billion it paid for the onetime movie-producing prize.