Laid Off at 69, Paramount's Ex-Distribution Chief Says the Studio Owes Him $4 Million

Chris Aronson says Paramount terminated him without cause in September 2025, months into a contract that ran through Dec. 1, 2028, per a complaint filed in Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Paramount declined to comment.

Chris Aronson, who ran domestic theatrical distribution at Paramount Pictures until December 2025, has sued the studio, saying it owes him more than $4 million. His attorney, Barry Kaufman, said he filed the complaint in Superior Court of Los Angeles County on Aug. 20, 2026, The Hollywood Reporter reported on Aug. 21, 2026. The document circulated online without a case number before the court had finished processing it, Kaufman told the outlet.

“I have not even received back a conformed copy of the Complaint and the associated documents from the court confirming that it was accepted for filing,” Kaufman said, per the outlet.

Paramount Pictures is one of the larger employers in the Los Angeles film business, and the case attaches a dollar figure to a single senior exit from the layoffs that followed the studio's merger with Skydance Media. None of it has been tested. No court has ruled on any of the allegations, and Paramount declined to comment on the suit, the outlet reported.

What the complaint alleges

Aronson was summoned on Sept. 29, 2025 to a meeting with new Paramount co-chairs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, the complaint says. He was told there that he was being terminated without cause, and that the studio intended to downgrade the position he held, according to the complaint. Greenstein assured him Paramount would pay everything owed under his contract, the complaint states.

That contract had been signed in July 2025 and would have kept him at the studio until Dec. 1, 2028, per the complaint. Remaining salary and incentive compensation under it had an estimated value approaching $3.9 million, the complaint states. Counting lost employment benefits and related compensation components, it puts his projected economic damages above $4 million.

Aronson was 69 at the time of the layoff. During the termination process he received disclosure data on the company's broader layoffs and commissioned his own analysis, which he says found a statistical pattern of age discrimination, according to the complaint. That data covered 62 laid-off employees who were 40 or older. Another 30 were under 40. The complaint claims Paramount's human resources department was aware of the age-related impacts of employment moves made for business strategy reasons. The Hollywood Reporter's account of the complaint does not list its causes of action.

Replaced in November

Paramount announced in November 2025 that it had hired Shaun Barber as its new domestic distribution chief, the outlet reported. Barber spent 18 years at Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment working on franchises including John Wick, The Hunger Games and Twilight. Aronson stayed on until Dec. 1, 2025, when Barber took over the role.

Aronson joined Paramount in 2019, after running distribution at 20th Century Fox before Disney acquired the Fox studio assets. He oversaw theatrical distribution on releases including Top Gun: Maverick, along with installments of Mission: Impossible, Sonic the Hedgehog and A Quiet Place. His Paramount contract was renewed in 2022 and again in 2025, months before the termination.

At that September 2025 meeting, the complaint says, the executives also floated consulting work for him down the road. It never happened. Aronson later took a consulting role with Rentrak Theatrical, the box office data platform formerly known as Comscore Movies. He founded that division.

The termination, the complaint says, “abruptly ended what reasonably appeared to be the final chapter of a distinguished career in theatrical distribution.” Aronson did not reply to The Hollywood Reporter's request for comment, the outlet reported.

Source: hollywoodreporter.com, retrieved August 22, 2026.