Silicon Valley and Hollywood worlds collide as David Ellison bids for
Paramount
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[April 23, 2024]
By Dawn Chmielewski
(Reuters) - David Ellison, 41, would not be the first rich guy to arrive
in Hollywood with a fat bank account and dreams of making movies, though
the son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison boasts the rarest of
attributes for a budding media mogul: a Silicon Valley pedigree.
In an industry where many get their start fetching coffee or moving
props, Ellison spent summers writing computer code for his father's
software company and getting insights on the movie business from Pixar
Animation Studios co-founder Steve Jobs. Those geek sensibilities will
come in handy if he succeeds in his bid to take over Paramount Global, a
storied studio whose fortunes have been upended by technological change.
Ellison is orchestrating a multi-step transaction that would result in
the merger of his independent studio, Skydance Media, with Paramount.
Skydance entered into a 30-day exclusive negotiation with a special
committee of the Paramount board, though as with any talks, a deal is
not assured.
If Paramount's board recommends the merger, it would present an
opportunity for Ellison to revitalize the venerable studio, whose
library of 1,000 films includes classics like "Star Trek," "The
Godfather" and "Indiana Jones," and whose television assets include
broadcaster CBS and cable networks MTV and Nickelodeon.
Ellison would likely restructure the company to deliver the
highest-quality content and recalibrate the Paramount+ streaming service
in a way that differentiates it from its rivals, according to one person
familiar with Skydance's strategy.
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"One of the things that people are under-estimating ... is his sense of
tech, compared to some of the other guys, ... maybe with his father's
help or just his upbringing," said Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel. "What they
do with Paramount+ and all that other stuff I think will be refreshing."
Skydance also is seeking to buy National Amusements, the Redstone
family's holding company, which owns 77% of Paramount's class-A voting
stock. That deal is contingent upon Paramount agreeing to acquire
Skydance in an all-stock transaction valued at $5 billion.
Ellison demonstrated an appetite for risk-taking from an early age,
learning to fly when he was 13 with his father, who took lessons with
him. By the age of 16, David Ellison was flying an Extra 300, a
high-performance aerobatic plane.
The studio's name takes its inspiration from Ellison's love of stunt
flying, also known as "skydancing."
Ellison and his sister, Megan, were raised by their mother, Barbara
Boothe, who instilled in them a strong work ethic (they received a $5
weekly allowance for performing chores) and a love of film. Every
weekend, they watched movies, he has told people.
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![](../images/042324PIX/ent_c.2.jpg)
David Ellison attends the U.S. premiere of Transformers: Rise of the
Beasts, at Kings Theater in New York, U.S., June 5, 2023. REUTERS/Amr
Alfiky/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Apr/23/images/ads/current/ldn_lda_BUSDIRCOVER_2024.png) Ellison enrolled in Pepperdine
University to study business, but transferred to the University of
California's film school. A GQ magazine profile of Ellison in 2015
noted that sister Megan served as a boom operator on her brother's
senior-thesis movie. In 2011, she founded her own studio, Annapurna
Pictures, which backed such Oscar-nominated films as "Zero Dark
Thirty" and "American Hustle."
In 2006, Ellison dropped out of school to finance "Flyboys," a World
War I movie about fighter pilots starring James Franco and Ellison.
The film flopped and another project, "Northern Lights," failed to
take flight.
Ellison then sought another tack. Skydance struck a four-year deal
with Paramount Pictures that led to Ellison's first success, the
Coen brothers' 2010 remake of the western "True Grit," which
garnered 10 Oscar nominations. Other box office triumphs have
followed, including "World War Z," "Star Trek," a trio of "Mission:
Impossible" films and "Top Gun: Maverick."
Bryan Lourd, co-chairman and chief executive of the Creative Artists
Agency, said Ellison is detail-oriented and an advocate for
projects, both creatively and in terms of deal structure. Because
Ellison worked on these big projects early in his career, he had the
opportunity to learn from the best.
If Ellison lands the deal, he will be "an owner-operator that
actually loves film and television and stories, and that is needed
now more than ever," Lourd said.
Skydance studio has grown with Ellison's ambitions. The studio now
employs 1,300 people and is on track to deliver six live-action
feature films, 10 television series and plus two animated movies
over the next year.
In 2016, Skydance acquired The Workshop Entertainment to launch a
game group, Skydance Interactive. In 2017 Skydance launched an
animation division, now led by former Pixar creative chief John
Lasseter. It expanded into sports-related scripted series and
documentaries in 2021, forming partnerships with the National
Football League, Tom Brady's Religion of Sports and John Skipper's
Meadowlark Media.
Skydance is backed by investments from the Ellison family, RedBird
Capital Partners, KKR, Chinese internet giant Tencent, and Korean
powerhouse CJ ENM and its entertainment subsidiary, Studio Dragon.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Richard
Chang)
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