Paramount lays off 120, replaces international president

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Paramount Pictures is laying off 120 of its approximately 2,400 employees as it merges it DVD, television and digital divisions and moves the headquarters of its international operation to Los Angeles from London.

Some cuts were expected as part of a reorganization of Viacom Inc.-owned Paramount’s business operations, announced last month. Like many other studios, Paramount is seeking to reduce expenses in the face of dwindling DVD revenue and to reorient its business as the gaps between releases of movies on different platforms narrow. In June, Walt Disney Studios laid off 200 of its approximately 5,000 employees.

Eighty of Paramount’s layoffs are in Los Angeles, where most of the people losing their jobs worked in the television, DVD and digital units being consolidated. And 40 of the lost jobs came from Paramount Pictures International’s London office.

Paramount is also bringing in a new executive to oversee its international operation. Andrew Cripps, who has worked at Paramount Pictures International and its predecessor organization and been president since 1999, was told his group would be run out of the studio’s Los Angeles headquarters as part of last month’s shake-up. The veteran executive decided not to make the move.

He is being replaced by Anthony Marcoly, the former president of Walt Disney Pictures International. Marcoly left Disney in 2010 as part of an exodus of senior executives after the installment of Rich Ross as chairman of the studio in late 2009.

Marcoly previously worked with Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore, his new boss, when the two were both at Disney.

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-- Ben Fritz