Longtime Paramount exec Lee Rosenthal is returning to the studio to serve as President, Worldwide Physical Production, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Studios. Brian Robbins, President & CEO of Nickelodeon and Paramount announced the appointment in a memo to employees on Tuesday, February 1. The news comes as the company looks to optimize and strategically align across both studios.
Rosenthal will manage physical production across Paramount Pictures, Paramount Animation, Nickelodeon Animation and Live Action, with those divisions reporting directly to him. As part of a restructuring, the VFX and postproduction teams at Paramount will also report directly to Rosenthal.
Rosenthal has worked at Paramount for 27 years, starting as Vice President (VP) of Production Management for Paramount in 1994 and rising to become President of Physical Production in 2009. He has overseen production on several recent key tentpoles for the studio, including A Quiet Place — Part II and the upcoming Top Gun: Maverick. He had stepped away from production duties in August, serving as a consultant for Nickelodeon over the past six months.
Rosenthal’s return to Paramount is the latest staffing change by Robbins, who became the new president and CEO of the studio this past September. His appointment has been accompanied by a flurry of new hires and restructuring within the studio as it looks to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic with a 2022 slate that includes Jackass Forever, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Top Gun: Maverick and Babylon.
Below is Robbins’ memo about Rosenthal’s appointment:
"All,
As Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon move closer together through our overarching franchise strategy, I have worked hard and methodically to identify areas that bridge the business in ways that enhance and best support each brand’s singularity. Physical production is an area where there is significant opportunity for alignment and optimization across Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Studios. As a result of this strategic alignment, I am pleased to announce that studio veteran Lee Rosenthal has been named President, Worldwide Physical Production, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Studios, effective immediately and reporting to me.
Lee was previously at Paramount for 27 years, and most recently served as a consultant at Nickelodeon since August of last year. In this newly-created role, Lee will return to the Melrose Lot to oversee physical production across Paramount Pictures, Paramount Animation, Nickelodeon Animation and Live Action. He will be responsible for discovering and maximizing our efforts and efficiencies across these businesses; and creating more opportunities for physical production teams to gain experience in live action and animation across both film and television. Moving forward, the physical production teams across all these divisions will report directly to Lee while still working closely with their respective creative and business affairs leads. While the post production support for Nickelodeon Studios will continue to be served under the ViacomCBS Media Nets infrastructure with a dotted line to Lee, the VFX and post production teams at Paramount Studios will directly report to Lee in this new structure.
During his tenure at the studio, Lee most recently served as the President of Physical Production for Paramount Pictures, where he oversaw the production management department. He was responsible for supervising physical production, staffing, budgeting, and troubleshooting for Paramount’s full slate of films, from pre-production through filming, visual effects, and post-production on films including Top Gun: Maverick and A Quiet Place Part II. Lee started at Paramount in 1994 as an assistant to the Vice President of Production Management and was elevated to Production Executive and Vice President before eventually becoming head of the department in 2009.
Personal Paramount highlights for Lee include the first feature he supervised Varsity Blues; Rango, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature; Star Trek, directed by J.J. Abrams, and its sequels; working on every Mission: Impossible film, and awards favorites Rocketman, Fences, The Big Short, and True Grit. Prior to Paramount, he began his Hollywood career as a Staff Coordinator at Walt Disney Pictures and Television (1989-1994).
This new leadership position not only reflects Lee’s outstanding business acumen and strong filmmaker relationships, but the leadership he has demonstrated over his meaningful tenure as well. Please join me in welcoming Lee back to Paramount and into this exciting new chapter at our company.
Brian"
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