Paramount Global Co-Chief Executive Brian Robbins stepped down Wednesday, a day before David Ellison’s Skydance Media absorbs the entertainment company.
The move was expected. Skydance unveiled it senior management team earlier this week, signaling its plans to shake up the leadership of Robbins’ turf — the famed Paramount Pictures on Melrose Avenue.
Robbins has led the movie studio since 2021.
Longtime Ellison lieutenant Dana Goldberg and former Sony executive Josh Greenstein will jointly manage the studio as co-chairs. Don Granger, another Skydance executive, becomes motion pictures president, reporting to Goldberg and Greenstein.
Skydance’s $8.4-billion takeover of Paramount is scheduled to be finalized on Thursday.
Robbins is a longtime producer and former child actor who joined Paramount, then known as Viacom, in 2017. He led Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon, working to invigorate beloved franchises, before being elevated in April 2024. Robbins then became part of the triumvirate of CEOs then tasked with running the company after former Chief Executive Bob Bakish got bounced.
For 15 months, Robbins, CBS chief George Cheeks and cable programming head Chris McCarthy steered the company during a particularly tumultuous time with business pressures, the loss of cable TV subscribers, and significant staff reductions.
Controlling shareholder Shari Redstone also was looking to sell the company — adding more uncertainty for the rattled ranks.
Cheeks is the only senior Paramount executive who will stay on with the new ownership. He becomes chairman of TV media, which includes the CBS properties and cable TV channels, including MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET.
McCarthy, who oversaw lucrative cable franchises, including “Yellowstone” and “South Park, also stepped down as the Redstone era winds to a close.
“When I first walked onto the Paramount Pictures lot as a young filmmaker many years ago, I never imagined I’d one day be entrusted with leading this storied studio,” Robbins said Wednesday in a note to his staff. “It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to work alongside such an extraordinary group of people.”
In his note, Robbins touted efforts to reinvigorate durable franchises, including “Sonic the Hedgehog,” “Scream,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Mission: Impossible.”
His team, along with Skydance, was behind the highest-grossing film in Paramount’s century-plus history, “Top Gun: Maverick.”
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