Paramount Players has lost two of its executives, with Matt Dines and Ali Bell leaving their posts as executive vice presidents of development and production.
A spokesman for Paramount told Variety that there are no plans to shutter the three-year-old division in the wake of the departures. Wyck Godfrey, Paramount’s motion pictures group president, remains in charge of the label.
Dines will run 75 Year Plan, the production banner founded by Jonah Hill. Dines was an executive at MGM prior to joining Paramount Players.
Bell worked at Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Picture Company, becoming president of production, before taking the Paramount gig. She also worked at David Heyman’s Heyday Films and at Nickelodeon.
Paramount launched the Paramount Players division in mid-2017 with veteran producer and executive Brian Robbins in charge of the goal of increasing the studio’s output. Robbins left in October 2018 to become the president of Nickelodeon and Godfrey assumed oversight of the division.
Since then, the division has co-produced half a dozen titles. Dines oversaw “Nobody’s Fool” and John Cena’s “Playing With Fire.” Bell oversaw “What Men Want,” “Dora and the City of Gold” and the upcoming sci-fier “Monster Problems,” starring Dylan O’Brien. Paramount Players was also a co-producer on the horror film “Eli,” which Netflix released last year.
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The top performer among the Paramount Players titles was “Dora and the City of Gold,” which grossed $120 million worldwide. The news about the executives was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.