Hollywood has been reeling from the manufacturing exodus from California, the pandemic, the writers’ and actors’ strikes, the LA wildfires, and the AI takeover. Now comes the massive consolidation.
David Ellison, head of Skydance Media and son of tech mogul Larry Ellison, has been on a purchasing spree, first shopping for up Paramount and now beating out Netflix to accumulate Warner Bros.
Ellison has a checkered report of constructing and producing films. That has executives questioning what he’ll do with two legacy Hollywood studios.
The merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. is predicted to convey one other spherical of layoffs, restructured divisions, extra cost-cutting, and doubtlessly fewer film releases — regardless of Ellison’s guarantees that the media behemoth will churn out as many as 30 theatrical releases a 12 months.
Consolidation additionally means fewer retailers for writers to pitch tasks to. Much less competitors means the studios can get away with reducing solid and crew salaries.
And with Ellison attempting to achieve Trump’s regulatory approval, the Warner Bros.-owned CNN would possibly veer rightward, as Paramount Skydance-owned CBS not too long ago has.
It’s not a finished deal, with the Teamsters and others lobbying the Division of Justice to dam the merger except considerations over employee protections are addressed.
However how did David Ellison come to have a lot energy in Hollywood? For extra of his backstory, At the moment, Defined host Sean Rameswaram spoke to Reeves Wiedeman, options author at New York Journal.
Beneath is an excerpt of their dialog, edited for size and readability. There’s far more within the full podcast, so take heed to At the moment, Defined wherever you get podcasts, together with Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Currently you’ve been writing options about one particular person. Is it honest to say stated particular person is possibly the most important nepo child on Earth — in the meanwhile at the very least?
The one credit score I’ll give David Ellison within the scheme of nepo infants is that he went into a totally totally different business than his dad. He took his dad’s cash, possibly extra money than any nepo child has taken — tens of billions of {dollars} at this level of tech cash — and is now pouring it into Hollywood.
He talks about how as a child he cherished the films, like many children do. He went to the films along with his mother each weekend and had film marathons. He truly went to varsity for enterprise, however shortly found out that was truly not what he wished to do. He wished to go to movie faculty, went to movie faculty at USC, and initially he was attempting to do any and all the pieces. He was curious about appearing, curious about writing, possibly directing.
His first foray into Hollywood was appearing in a World Battle I film [Flyboys] starring James Franco. The way in which that David Ellison obtained this function was his dad’s cash. Larry had contributed numerous the cash for the funds, and lo and behold, David obtained a task within the movie.
How was his massive debut in Flyboys? Was it effectively obtained?
It was not nice. The film bombed on the field workplace. Critics didn’t adore it. He’s not a pure actor, he’s not a naturally charismatic particular person, which I feel has carried over into his enterprise life somewhat bit. So I feel, fortunately for him, he realized fairly early on the appearing factor was not precisely going to take and he was going to have to determine another strategy to make it within the enterprise.
And so he turns into a cash man.
Mainly. He obtained this notion that many individuals get after they get into Hollywood, particularly after they have somewhat bit of cash behind them: “I’m going to start out a manufacturing firm.” He initially went round, tried to search out some buyers to pour some cash into this firm that will make varied films primarily centered on the sorts of flicks David appreciated, which have been motion/journey films.
And the corporate is Skydance.
The corporate’s known as Skydance. And what they have been capable of do very early on is they obtained a take care of Paramount. And Paramount on the time was a struggling film studio. It’s one of many legendary film studios in Hollywood, however on the time it was being mismanaged and never that profitable and so they have been joyful to have David are available in with some cash to assist them finance and make some films. And in change for doing that, David was allowed to take part in — as they put it in Hollywood — a few of the massive franchises that Paramount has. And a few of these films have been nice massive blockbusters. Plenty of them David didn’t have a ton to do with.
After which ultimately, he began attempting to make films on his personal. A few of them have been primarily based on unique concepts that he and others had. He additionally had this longstanding purpose of constructing a Terminator film. Terminator and Terminator 2 have been two of the films he cherished as a child. And he made a model of the film, Terminator Genisys. Additionally not nice.
He had this blended observe report of constructing these massive motion films. Typically those with Tom Cruise have been fairly good. Typically those with out Tom Cruise primarily based on unique concepts, not so good.
After which he makes a actually good film with Tom Cruise.
Inarguably top-of-the-line, possibly the finest vital and industrial movie of the previous few a long time, High Gun: Maverick. And David Ellison, for anybody who desires to criticize him, and there’s loads of methods and causes to do it, he deserves numerous credit score for it. Loads of different folks, most particularly Tom Cruise, got here collectively to make that occur. However David was one of many individuals who actually saved up the momentum to make that film occur. To the purpose of over a billion {dollars} and a few Oscar nominations.
Does that change how Hollywood sees him? Does he turn into much less of a nepo child and extra of a respectable participant?
I feel it was actually good timing as a result of that film got here out, did extremely effectively, everybody in Hollywood cherished it. “Tom Cruise is right here to save lots of the films. David Ellison is the one who’s supporting him. Perhaps he’s not so unhealthy.” And proper at that second was when David had began his pursuit of Paramount.
It turned public on the finish of 2023 that he was curious about shopping for it. The Redstone household was going to promote the corporate. Like many industries, Hollywood was going by this actual interval of disruption. Spending was down, cash was down. Covid modified the film enterprise specifically. And so there was this sense, at the very least at that second, that if not the savior of Hollywood, that David was possibly the very best particular person you might must take over a studio like Paramount.
I feel the place the opinion of him began to alter was within the 12 months between 2024 into 2025, between when the deal was introduced and when it truly went by. Plenty of issues occurred throughout that time, and the most important was that Donald Trump was elected president. And Paramount isn’t just a film studio. Paramount owns CBS, most notably.
And folks will, I’m positive, bear in mind all the drama that surrounded 60 Minutes and Trump’s lawsuit in opposition to 60 Minutes. And David spent portion of that 12 months catering to the Trump administration’s wants and needs and needs to be able to get this deal authorized.
So David, who had as much as that time barely been concerned in politics in any respect, he was not somebody who was even actually an enormous donor to politicians previous to 2024, turned tied to the Trump administration in ways in which made folks uncomfortable in every kind of the way.
You’ve finished a bunch of interviews. You’ve spoken with nameless Hollywood executives. Are they feeling extra hopeful in a second like this the place there’s been a bunch of consolidation but in addition a ton of cash infused into the business, or are they terrified that that is all going to implode?
I didn’t get any inklings of hope. I feel there’s a sure realism that folks have that consolidation was going to occur, which everyone knows the historical past of, that in any enterprise, issues are inclined to get smaller. Mixed with the politics, the truth that David has catered a lot to the Trump administration and whether or not that’s going to proceed. After which thirdly, his style and his talents as an govt. He’s now, as one Hollywood particular person identified to me, he went from being a midshipman to being the captain of the Titanic, actually, as a result of he now owns the film Titanic, which was a Paramount film.
On the finish of the day, everybody on this enterprise is in it to make films, TV reveals, and to generate income. And David Ellison has numerous that, some huge cash, and he’s going to be making numerous the films and TV reveals that we get to look at.
