Growing up, David Ellison spent every Sunday going to the movies with his mother and his sister, Annapurna founder Megan Ellison. As an adult, he spent more than 15 years pursuing his wish to run a legacy Hollywood studio. Now, his dream has become reality and all eyes are on the young mogul to see if he can right a studio that has been all but run into the ground.
On Wednesday, Ellison, the ambitious and reserved son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison, showed off his new throne — metaphorically speaking — and C-suite when hosting a meet-and-greet for journalists on the storied Melrose Lot in Hollywood, home of Paramount Pictures. The gathering followed a similar event in New York held Aug. 7, the day the $8 billion merger officially closed. The L.A. presser focused more on the movie and TV side.
At the event, he called Top Gun 3, the sequel to the $1.5 billion grosser Top Gun: Maverick, a top priority at the studio, and said he would be in the Tom Cruise business as long as the A-list star — with whom he has made ten films in Ellison’s former life at Skydance — wanted to tell stories with him.
“One of our biggest priorities is restoring Paramount as the No. 1 destination for the most talented artists and filmmakers in the world,” Ellison said. “Great filmmakers make great movies.”
Ellison, who said he intended to make movies exclusively for theaters, now has full control over a number of film franchises he already worked on at Skydance. Many of them have been dormant on the big screen for years (Star Trek, G.I. Joe) or have had trouble finding their footing in recent years (Terminator, Transformers).
Co-film chief Josh Greenstein said these franchises would be a priority, noting the company hopes to release 15 films a year, and then up that to 20. He name checked Star Trek and Transformers, with a surprise being World War Z, the 2013 Brad Pitt zombie feature. He also indicated an interest in both horror (Paramount is home to A Quiet Place and Smile) as well as R-rated comedies. But he noted that originals were also a priority, pointing to the first greenlight under the new regime, the Timothée Chalamet, James Mangold project High Side.
Star Trek, which has not been in theaters since 2016, has largely been overseen by Alex Kurtzman with a lengthy list of Paramount+ series. Execs said that Trek would be looked at holistically rather than siloed off between different parts of the company, such as film and TV. “We’re going to make sure those conversations are happening together so that we can do what’s best for the brand as a whole,” said film co-chief Dana Goldberg.
On the Paramount+ side, Ellison acknowledged the importance of Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan to the health of the streaming service. “He is literally a singular genius with a prefect track record,” said Ellison. “If we can make this his home as long as he wants to tell stories, we want to do that.”
Ellison arrives at Paramount well-prepared in terms of the executives he’s chosen to help right the flailing entertainment conglomerate, which has been under the rule of the Sumner Redstone family for more than three decades. Instead of choosing outsiders, he’s relying on Hollywood veterans and studio executives, who, between them, have worked at every studio sometime along the way.
The C-suite includes former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, who is president of the entire Paramount Skydance operation; Andy Gordon, who had been leading RedBird Capital’s Los Angeles office, who is COO of the company. RedBird, which is providing financial capital to support the Skydance deal, has also most recently employed Shell.
George Cheeks, who has also been leading the CBS business, will remain with the company as chair of TV media, adding oversight of the company’s cable TV channels. Cindy Holland, the former Netflix scripted TV chief, will lead new Paramount’s streaming businesses, including Paramount+ and Pluto. Holland has been a Skydance advisor since last year.
Ellison’s longtime confidante and Skydance chief content officer Goldberg has been tapped alongside former Sony Pictures exec Greenstein to lead the new Paramount Pictures studio as co-chairs (they each have additional duties as well). Goldberg said Paramount would emphasize family films, citing movies like Goonies and The Night at the Museum franchise as north stars. “We’re going to run towards those movies,” she said.
Holland, Greenstein and Goldberg were not at the New York press event, so Wednesday provided the first chance to hear from them. For Greenstein, it’s a homecoming. Prior to Sony, he ran marketing and distribution at Paramount, where Ellison’s Skydance had a co-producing and co-financing deal. He, Ellison and Goldberg formed a close friendship that endured.
Ellison fielded a number of other topics, batting away speculation that he was interested in acquiring TikTok and declining to discuss specifics on new voices he might like to bring into CBS News. He also noted that he intended to hold onto BET, after speculation that the previous Paramount regime flirted with selling.
As he has reiterated repeatedly, Ellison emphasized that technological efficiencies will help Paramount prevail in the years to come.
“Legacy media kind of swam out to the middle of the lake, but wasn’t exactly sure how to get to the other side. Some people wanted to go back and burn the boats,” Ellison said, adding that he intended to “get to the other side of the lake.”
