Paramount Was Hollywood’s ‘Mountain.’ Now It’s a Molehill.

“I am big,” the delusional silent film star Norma Desmond insists in one famous moment. “It’s the pictures that got small.”

‘It’s irrelevant’

Paramount has endured boom and bust cycles before. In the 1960s the studio’s then-owner, the industrial conglomerate Gulf Western, very nearly sold a badly struggling Paramount for its real estate value. Talks began with a cemetery that borders the studio. More burial plots were envisioned.

That was when Paramount’s young production chief, Robert Evans, turned a macabre drama, “Rosemary’s Baby,” into a box office juggernaut. Another unexpected hit, the teary romance “Love Story,” arrived in 1970.

Mr. Evans went on to make the studio a showcase for culture-defining cinema, serving up “The Godfather,” “The Godfather II,” “Harold and Maude,” “Serpico,” “Chinatown” and “Urban Cowboy,” among others. Those movies inspired many of today’s top directors and film executives to pursue Hollywood careers — an entire generation of creativity reared on what Paramount produced.

A successor, Sherry Lansing, kept Paramount healthy until handing over the reins to Mr. Grey. Her tenure was marked by the Academy Award-winning hits “Forrest Gump,” “Braveheart” and “Titanic,” a co-production with Fox. The studio was so strong, in fact, that people in Hollywood referred to it by a nickname: “the Mountain,” a reference to its logo of a snow-capped peak encircled by stars.

So anything is possible. In the months ahead, Paramount is betting big on drugs, gay sex and rock ’n’ roll: “Rocketman,” a musical about Elton John’s turbulent life and career, arrives from the studio in May, one of Hollywood’s most competitive months. Mr. Gianopulos sees another potential success in Ang Lee’s “Gemini Man,” which will roll out in the fall and stars Will Smith as an aging hit man who must combat a clone of his younger self.

Generally boding well, Mr. Gianopulos has repaired crucial relationships with producers. Hasbro, a partner that had grown disenchanted, agreed to a five-year extension, for instance.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/business/media/paramount-pictures.html?partner=rss&emc=rss