Paramount Prepared To Climb Mountains Again, Lansing Indicates

Paramount Chairman Sherry Lansing is spreading the word that Paramount intends to change its image as a penny-pinching outfit intent on turning out formulaic, safe product. In an interview with today's (Wednesday) New York Times, Lansing indicated that given the mediocre performance of most of the studio's output in recent years, "my model had to change." Lansing made no reference to remarks made by Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, Paramount's corporate parent earlier this month, that he intended to relax "risk aversion" policies that had been imposed on the studio and to make more money available to it to finance more challenging productions. Lansing told the Times: "We want to send a message to the creative community that we will pay $125 million for a movie. We're not afraid of it. We're starting to change the image of the studio, which was always thought of as playing it safe."
2004-04-20 23:03:48