Paramount/Skydance Makes Cuts; Home Entertainment Department Majorly Affected

[Britnasty]

Did you grab IF 4K last week? Better run out and grab it before it and other Paramount titles become scarce.

All right, Bits readers, today is a tough one news-wise, and it has little to do with specific title release news or announcements.

We’ve learned from multiple sources now that the 15% US workforce cuts at Paramount Global—a restructuring that’s happening in advance of the company’s merger with Skydance Media to reduce annual costs by some $500 million—have landed very heavily on the Melrose lot. As reported widely last week, the layoffs amount to about 2,000 people, with most expected to be gone by the end of next month and the rest by year’s end.

Current co-CEOs George Cheeks, Brian Robbins, and Chris McCarthy have described the layoffs thusly in a memo to the workforce: “As we continue to advance our plan, we announced on our earnings call last week that we will be reducing our US-based workforce by approximately 15%, focusing on redundant functions and streamlining corporate teams.”

The expectation was that every division would be impacted. As reported last week, Paramount Television Studios has been shuttered completely. What’s not been reported widely yet is the impact on overall studio operations.

The Digital Bits sources indicate that nearly every department has been affected—in a few cases severely—from marketing, legal, and accounting, to production, post-production, finance, mastering, vault and library services, and unfortunately also Paramount Home Entertainment. The cuts are reportedly not so deep as to result in a complete loss of institutional knowledge, but they’re more than deep enough to result in major workflow disruptions.

Word first began to reach The Bits early last week that indie home entertainment distributors working regularly with Paramount—among them Imprint, Kino Lorber Studio Classics, Vinegar Syndrome, and Shout! Studios—were suddenly facing a complete freeze on new licensing activity.

Within hours of receiving that news, we began sending out inquiries to sources within the industry and the implications quickly became clear. Studio people themselves simply didn’t respond—for understandable and obvious reasons—but alarm was rapidly spreading virtually everywhere else.

The disruption in home entertainment at Paramount is reportedly so severe that once titles already announced or in the production pipeline arrive in stores, there may be a months-long draught in Paramount Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD disc product, not just from the studio itself but also in terms of deep catalog Paramount titles from all their indie-label licensees. And getting disc production at the studio back up to speed going forward is probably going to require a heavy reliance on outside vendors.

Either way, the situation at the studio isn’t good—very much akin to the disruptions we’ve seen from other major studios that have gone through merger, acquisition, or reorg turmoil, including the Fox sale to Disney, Warner’s seemingly never-ending Zaslav personnel sloughs, and the belt-tightening that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hopefully, the situation at Paramount will stabilize sooner than later, and new Skydance management will see the value of—and continue to support—physical disc media and home entertainment catalog product as aggressively as the previous studio regime has done. But the situation remains fluid, and the simple fact is we just don’t know what the new owners will see as a priority.

Rest assured, we’re continuing to monitor developments and we will share updates here at The Bits as they come in.

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/m...ts/081924-1245

[whiteberry]

It's wild that they not only have three CEOs but one of them is the dude from Head Of The Class.

If we don't get a 4K UHD of White Christmas this year, it's going to get ugly:

[DukeTogo84]

So I'm confused. If something is already licensed, but hasn't been released yet, will this prevent them from releasing it?

[Britnasty]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

So I'm confused. If something is already licensed, but hasn't been released yet, will this prevent them from releasing it?

Whatever they have licensed and the smaller distributors have pressed will get released. They’re stopping all new licensing activity for now.

[FirstDayBuyBrandon]

This means every new release is a First Day Buy!!

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by Britnasty

Whatever they have licensed and the smaller distributors have pressed will get released. They’re stopping all new licensing activity for now.

So lets say it's not pressed, but was part of a bundle deal, it will not get released?

Say for example the Pee Wee film. The features are done, but it's not pressed yet, that will not get a release?

[dwk]

If it is already licensed and the elements, at least, scanned, it will probably come out. But there could be hold ups in getting legal to sign off on special features or scans for titles licensed but not yet scanned.

[cgpublic]

If you have the slightest inking of who David Ellison is, and what makes him tick, well then, there's your answer to how all of this ends.

[jess1581]

What IT 4K?

[James Luckard]

Horrifying, but not surprising, sadly.

[Britnasty]

Originally Posted by jess1581

What IT 4K?

I fixed the misspelling.

[Bubbles-11]

This is weird considering their Home Entertainment department has plenty of upcoming releases due to debut soon. Quiet Place Day One in October, SpongeBob Another 100 Episodes on DVD (w/ Kwarantined Krab hopefully finally included on physical home video?) in October too, the Knuckles series out next month, and pre-orders opening for a Gladiator UHD re-release and the first SpongeBob movie's standard UHD release. Will this cost-cutting somehow massively delay those releases?

[jess1581]

Originally Posted by Britnasty

I fixed the misspelling.

Is it worth snagging?

[Tylerfan]

It was average, IMO

[Watershipdownisgood]

Originally Posted by Bubbles-11

This is weird considering their Home Entertainment department has plenty of upcoming releases due to debut soon. Quiet Place Day One in October, SpongeBob Another 100 Episodes on DVD (w/ Kwarantined Krab hopefully finally included on physical home video?) in October too, the Knuckles series out next month, and pre-orders opening for a Gladiator UHD re-release and the first SpongeBob movie's standard UHD release. Will this cost-cutting somehow massively delay those releases?

Yes I wouldn’t be surprised I’m honestly not surprised by the job cuts, and this news Paramount was doing really really bad this year, and the fact that they ended up partnering with Skydance Entertainment. They were close to bankruptcy so they ended up joining Skydance as the other choices were either go independent, or end up bankrupt. What I wonder is what this means for future licensing deals with the boutique labels as there will be a month long drought most likely in December with no new licensing deals with Paramount.

[starsteam]

Vol 3 of Paramount Scares was more horrifying than I could have imagined.

Wonder how far the production pipeline is. Will Transformers One be effected?

[Watershipdownisgood]

This is bad very very bad not good news at all although I think the people at Skydance actually care about physical media unlike Disney, and Apple. I definitely see no releases in December, or January with a two month long drought of no physical media releases licensed by Paramount in those months. Whether it be boutique, or Paramount themselves meaning no Paramount Presents titles, or boutique titles licensed from Paramount at all those months.


I feel really really bad for all the employees that lost their jobs not for Paramount themselves though, but the people that had been working for them before over 2000 of them got laid off that sucks.

[Kenneth M]

Originally Posted by cgpublic

If you have the slightest inking of who David Ellison is, and what makes him tick, well then, there's your answer to how all of this ends.

I'm ignorant. What's the read?

[King O.A.]

Corporations being corporations. Nothing new.

[Bubbles-11]

Originally Posted by starsteam

Vol 3 of Paramount Scares was more horrifying than I could have imagined.

Wonder how far the production pipeline is. Will Transformers One be effected?

we'll see judging by if pre-order listings for that film's blu-ray or uhd go up on release weekend