Studio officer to step down

DreamWorks Animation said Michael Francis is stepping down from his role as the company’s chief branding officer in the latest executive shake-up at the Glendale animation studio.

Francis, a former president of J.C. Penney who has overseen all of DreamWorks Animation’s branding, licensing and consumer products divisions since 2013, will leave his job at the end of December, the company said in a statement.

His duties will be handled by Jim Fielding, the current head of global consumer products and former president of Disney Stores. Fielding also was a longtime senior executive at Claire’s Stores.

The executive change marks the latest overhaul of the management team at DreamWorks Animation. Following a string of box-office flops, the studio cut 500 jobs, including those of Chief Operating Officer Mark Zoradi, Marketing Director Dawn Taubin and Vice Chairman Lewis Coleman.

Longtime executive Bill Damaschke, the studio’s chief creative officer, also left the company. Veteran producers Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria have taken over as co-presidents of feature animation.

Francis, a widely recognized branding expert who spent nearly three decades at Target Corp., was a key figure in DreamWorks Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg’s senior management team.

Katzenberg said when he hired Francis that he would play a pivotal role in helping the studio find new ways to promote its branded characters around the world.

But the company was forced to retreat from its ambitious strategy to diversify and spread its brands across new businesses after facing heavy losses from such movies as “Mr. Peabody & Sherman.” The company posted a loss of $38.6 million in the second quarter.