What We Know About David Ellison—Paramount's New Post-Merger CEO
Film producer David Ellison is Paramount's soon-to-be CEO after its merger with Skydance. (Photo by ... More CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP) (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images
Ellison, 42, is set to become the chairman and CEO of Paramount once its merger with Skydance, approved on Thursday by the Trump administration's Federal Communications Commission, is complete, setting him in charge of brands including CBS, MTV and Paramount Pictures.
Ellison is the son of Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder worth $290 billion as of Friday, making him the second-richest person in the world, according to Forbes estimates.
A University of Southern California film school drop-out, Ellison pursued a brief acting career before becoming a big-time producer of blockbusters like 'Top Gun: Maverick,' which notched him an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
Ellison made an offer to buy Paramount in 2024, and the companies finally agreed to merge in July of 2024—though the deal was not greenlit by the FCC until Thursday after a year of political tumult, including a pressure campaign by President Donald Trump that appears to have influenced CBS to settle a lawsuit with with the president for millions, and possibly impacted the decision to cancel Stephen Colbert's 'Late Show.'
Ellison's father Larry Ellison, 80, is a titan of Silicon Valley who co-founded Oracle in 1977. David Ellison grew up in Woodside, California, in the Bay Area, where he was raised by his mother. His sister Megan, 39, is a film producer who founded Annapurna Pictures and backed the Oscar-nominated films 'Zero Dark Thirty,' 'Her,' 'American Hustle' and 'Phantom Thread.' His mother raised him to love movies, and the family would gather in their living room and watch the same films over and over: 'all three 'Star Wars' movies, back to back, 'Jurassic Park,' the original 'Terminator,' 'Back to the Future,'' journalist and novelist Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote in a GQ profile. Who Is Ellison's Wife?
In 2011, Ellison married actress and singer-songwriter Sandra Lynn Modic, with whom he has two children. She releases country music under the name Sandra Lynn and has released multiple EPs, including 'Sandra Lynn' in 2014 and 'Fight' in 2018. Her most popular music video, for her song 'Lose the War,' has garnered 1.1 million views on YouTube. Billboard premiered the video for her song, 'I Think of You,' in 2019, describing Lynn's song as a 'stirring' and 'vulnerable' ballad. She has not released music since 2019, according to her Spotify and YouTube profiles.
Ellison briefly worked as an actor during the 2000s, with his first starring role in the 2006 war drama 'Flyboys' alongside James Franco. 'Flyboys,' bombed at the box office, grossing less than $18 million against its $60 million budget—which was reportedly financed by Ellison and his father. He then starred in the 2010 comedy 'Hole in One' alongside 'American Pie' actor Steve Talley, which largely flew under the radar. How Steve Jobs Influenced Ellison—and Skydance
Backed by his father's money, Ellison founded Skydance in 2006 and told Kara Swisher in The New York Times in 2022 that Steve Jobs, who was one of his father's best friends, was an important mentor to him. He said Jobs initially told him it wouldn't work. 'I want you to come back up here and talk about how you guys are going to aspire to make movies and tell stories better than anybody else, because that's what we did at Pixar,' he says Jobs told him. In 2009, Ellison raised $350 million, some from his father, to finance a five-year agreement with Paramount to co-produce movies. Brodesser-Akner described him in GQ as someone who 'bought his way into Hollywood because he was rich and stayed there because he was good.' He notched his first big hit with The Coen brothers' Oscar-nominated 'True Grit,' the second movie produced under Skydance, which grossed more than $250 million worldwide on a $38 million budget. But he then began producing big-budget movies and veered toward well-known franchises. His third movie with Skydance was 'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,' which grossed nearly $700 million on a $145 million budget and was the first of five 'Mission Impossible' movies Skydance backed. Collectively, Skydance's 'Mission Impossible' movies grossed more than $3.3 billion worldwide. Skydance produced two Oscar-nominated 'Star Trek' movies—'Star Trek Into Darkness' (2013), which grossed $467 million on a $185 million budget, and 'Star Trek Beyond' (2016), which made $343 million on a $185 million budget—and backed two Terminator movies, the financially successful 'Terminator Genisys' in 2015 and the box-office bomb 'Terminator: Dark Fate' in 2019, which reportedly lost Paramount and Skydance more than $120 million. 'Top Gun: Maverick' is the studio's biggest hit and the 14th-highest-grossing movie of all time. Skydance's merger agreement with Paramount valued Skydance at $4.75 billion. What Do We Know About Ellison's Political Views—and Relationship With Trump?
In 2024, Ellison donated nearly $1 million to former President Joe Biden's re-election campaign, before he dropped out of the race. But since negotiating the Paramount-Skydance merger, Ellison was spotted sitting near Trump at a UFC event earlier this year, and Trump has praised Ellison's takeover of Paramount. 'Ellison's great, he'll do a great job with it,' Trump told reporters in June. Ellison's Skydance has promised the Trump administration it would gut diversity, equity and inclusion policies and install an ombudsman to field complaints of ideological bias in CBS news coverage, in apparent attempts to appeal to Trump's FCC to secure approval for the merger. Ellison's father, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Republican donor and supporter of Trump. In 2020, Larry Ellison told Forbes he had never donated to Trump but once let him use a property he owned for a fundraiser. 'I don't think he's the devil—I support him and want him to do well,' Larry Ellison told Forbes. Larry Ellison joined Trump at the White House in January alongside other tech CEOs to discuss investment in artificial intelligence. What Does Ellison Want To Do As Paramount Chief?
Ellison has said he wants to transform Paramount into a 'tech hybrid' company, using artificial intelligence to 'turbocharge content creation capabilities' and cut costs. Ellison said in a presentation to investors last year he envisions building a 'studio in the cloud' in partnership with Oracle to streamline production processes, using AI and cloud computing to speed up film production and animation. He also said he wanted to improve streaming service Paramount+'s algorithms to reduce cancelations and increase the amount of time subscribers use the platform. Ellison also reportedly told federal regulators he would push CBS News to embrace 'unbiased' and 'American storytelling,' following Trump's '60 Minutes' lawsuit and Paramount settlement. Ellison has reportedly held talks with Bari Weiss, the self-described 'left-leaning centrist' and often divisive journalist, to acquire her media company The Free Press, and potentially fuse it in some with CBS News. Ellison's possible embrace of Weiss comes as Skydance's general counsel Kyoko McKinnon promised the FCC in a letter the new Paramount leadership will 'ensure that the company's array of news and entertainment programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum.' Weiss, a critic of diversity, equity and inclusion and 'woke' culture, started The Free Press after quitting the Times over what she called its 'illiberal environment' and its 'new McCarthyism.'
Ben Affleck praised Ellison at a CNBC panel last year, stating he is 'not management class' and will approach Paramount 'in a very different way as somebody who's invested as an owner.' Billionaire filmmaker Tyler Perry, who has signed development deals with Paramount-owned BET, referred to Ellison by saying it would be beneficial to have 'someone who loves this business at the helm of one of the most storied studios.' Jane Fonda, who starred in the Skydance-produced Netflix series 'Grace & Frankie,' said the merger 'ensures that I get to continue the collaboration with an incredibly talented and enthusiastic film family.' Ellison told CNBC his frequent collaborator Tom Cruise is 'supportive' of the merger. News Peg
The FCC commissioners voted 2-1 on Thursday to approve the Paramount-Skydance merger. The lone dissenting vote was from Anna Gomez, the only Democrat on the commission, who accused Paramount of 'cowardly capitulation to this Administration,' referencing the president's lawsuit settlement. Trump has claimed he received $16 million as part of the Paramount settlement and would be entitled to '$20 Million Dollars more from the new Owners, in Advertising, PSAs, or similar Programming.' After approving the merger, FCC Chair Brendan Carr said he welcomes 'Skydance's commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,' stating 'Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change.' Further Reading
FCC Greenlights $8 Billion Paramount-Skydance Merger After Skydance Vows To End DEI Programs (Forbes)
How Will David Ellison Tackle the Big Problems at Paramount? (New York Times)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
25 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
David Ellison is coming to Paramount with Silicon Valley cash. Can he save a classic studio?
As a deep-pocketed producer, David Ellison helped breathe new life into Paramount franchises including 'Mission: Impossible,' 'Star Trek' and 'Top Gun.' But can the high-flying son of a billionaire make a full-fledged media company airworthy again? Can he use Silicon Valley money and movie business know-how to restore the legacy of one of the entertainment industry's original studios, following a deal clinched through an act of political appeasement? Those are the questions Hollywood talent, studio rivals and insiders will be asking as Ellison takes the controls of the new Paramount, after regulators finally approved the long-awaited $8-billion merger with his Santa Monica production company Skydance Media. The deal — two years in the making, and approved by the FCC only after a $16-million settlement with Trump and promises to mindwipe any trace of DEI from the company — is expected to close Aug. 7. After that, Ellison, backed in large part by his father, Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, will bring in his own team to face the daunting challenges. Chris McCarthy, the architect of Paramount's recent streaming strategy, is out. Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon head Brian Robbins is also expected to exit while CBS chief George Cheeks is staying. The incoming management team includes former NBCUniversal Chief Executive Jeff Shell, who is currently a heavyweight at Ellison's bidding partner RedBird Capital. Skydance Chief Creative Officer Dana Goldberg will run the film studio, and former Netflix executive Cindy Holland will play a major role at the new company. Also joining is Sony Pictures movie executive Josh Greenstein. This may be a different team from the one that labored under outgoing controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, but it'll be contending with most of the same problems. Paramount is dogged by issues buffeting all legacy media companies, including the decline of traditional TV ratings, the post-COVID-19 realignment of the theatrical box office and the escalating costs of sports rights, as my colleague Stephen Battaglio and I reported last week. Those difficulties were exacerbated at Paramount by chronic underinvestment and years of shambolic leadership, as corporate governance experts have long pointed out. Ellison has direct experience with movies, having produced many of them, including some of Paramount's biggest hits (as well as some notable flops). He's less steeped in running TV channels and streaming services, which have urgent needs. The scion is also coming in to make good on a promise to investors: to find $2 billion in cost cutting, which will mean layoffs and disruption. Paramount+ has been growing, thanks in part to the NFL, CBS shows and a run of original hits including 'Landman,' '1923' and 'Tulsa King.' But the service has lost money for years, and the app is clunky. (It's expected to reach full-year U.S. profitability in 2025.) McCarthy spent big bucks on talent, including Taylor Sheridan and the creators of 'South Park,' enough to make Matt Stone and Trey Parker billionaires, according to Forbes. Analysts say the service will need substantial investment in content and technology to make it competitive while also partnering with other companies to increase its reach through discounted bundles and other initiatives. The new owners will have to decide what to do with the cable channel business, which includes such eroding brands as MTV, BET and Comedy Central. Many observers tend to assume Ellison will eventually spin those off, following the lead of NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery. In a sadly comical reminder of what can happen with a merger gone wrong, David Zaslav's Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday announced that the two companies resulting from its pending breakup will be called — wait for it — Warner Bros. and Discovery Global. TD Cowen analyst Doug Cruetz, in a recent note to clients, speculated that Ellison didn't buy the Paramount assets just to 'break it up for parts.' We'll see. Another looming and potentially costly issue is the NFL's relationship with CBS Sports. The change of control will trigger an early renegotiation of Paramount's contract with the league once the transaction closes. That's important because the NFL has significant leverage in dealmaking, considering that its games account for the vast majority of most-watched programming on television. Ellison has promised to bring technological enhancements to Paramount. That would mean a more functional app for Paramount+ and an improved personalized recommendation system. It might mean using tech to make movies cheaper and faster. A year ago, Ellison noted a partnership between Skydance Animation and Oracle to build a so-called studio in the cloud. What technology can't do is pick the movies people want to see, and that's where the new leadership group will have to prove themselves. But the biggest hurdle will be overcoming the stain covering the deal itself after the concessions required to get it over the finish line. Paramount paid a substantial sum to make peace with President Trump, who had sued the company over CBS News' '60 Minutes' interview with his 2024 election rival, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The case was frivolous, 1st Amendment experts said. But the Redstone family and the Ellisons were desperate to get the deal done. As a result, the new company is starting off on a crooked foundation, as one Hollywood insider put it to me. Stephen Colbert, speaking on 'The Late Show,' called Paramount's settlement a 'big fat bribe.' Days later, he learned that his show would be ending in May. Even assuming the company told the truth in saying that the cancellation was a purely financial decision (i.e., the show was too expensive and it was losing money), the optics were bad. Comedians responded the way comedians do. The 'South Park' team, having secured a $1.5 billion deal to bring the long-running animated series to Paramount+, opened their 27th season with, effectively, a pair of middle fingers raised to Trump and their parent company. The show depicted a flapping-headed cartoon Trump in bed with Satan, similar to its past portrayal of Saddam Hussein, and ended with an AI-generated PSA showing the president wandering the desert and stripping naked, revealing tiny, talking genitalia. The Trump settlement cast a pall over whatever plans Ellison has. CBS News lost key figures in part due to Paramount's push to reach a peace accord with the president (Tanya Simon being named to run '60 Minutes' is seen as a relief). But whatever you say about the corporate behind-the-scenes machinations that took place to make the deal happen, you can't say the artists have lost their spine. In a return to form for Walt Disney Co.'s Marvel Studios, 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' opened with a robust $118 million in the U.S. and Canada and $218 million globally, according to studio estimates, slightly outperforming prerelease projections. This comes after middling results and poor reviews for 'Captain America: Brave New World' and tepid sales (but better reviews) for 'Thunderbolts*.' Last summer's 'Deadpool & Wolverine' was a $1.34-billion hit. Like Deadpool and Wolverine, the Fantastic Four — known as Marvel's first family — came to Disney through the company's acquisition of 21st Century Fox entertainment assets. Fox made three 'Fantastic Four' movies, all bad. 'First Steps' earned mostly positive reviews from critics and fans (88% on Rotten Tomatoes; 'A-' from CinemaScore). The $218-million global opening weekend was similar to that of James Gunn's DC reboot 'Superman,' released earlier this month. That film just crossed the $500 million box office milestone, with a strong $289 million domestically and a less-impressive $213 million overseas. Theaters have been on a winning streak this summer. So far this year, ticket sales are up 12% from 2024, according to Comscore. But the rest of the season looks thin. Next weekend features Paramount's 'The Naked Gun,' Universal's animated 'Bad Guys 2' and Neon's Sundance horror breakout 'Together,' starring real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie. One marker of a great artist is the number and diversity of musicians who take inspiration from their work. And Ozzy Osbourne, the Black Sabbath frontman who died last week, had plenty of admirers who covered his songs. The Times' Mikael Wood already rounded up the Prince of Darkness' 10 essential tracks. Here are some of the best covers, with help from Rolling Stone and Loudwire.
New York Post
25 minutes ago
- New York Post
Colbert bitterly mocks Paramount deal with slew of pee jokes: ‘Hot, streaming content right in your face'
Stephen Colbert — whose 'Late Show' was axed this month following CBS owner Paramount's legal settlement with President Trump — bitterly mocked the media giant's upcoming merger with a series of crude pee jokes. Taking aim at the change in Paramount's ticker, which will go from PARA to PSKY after its deal with David Ellison's Skydance Media, Colbert pronounced the new name as 'pee-sky.' 'I'm thrilled for everyone at Paramount,' Colbert quipped Monday night, adding: 'Soon, PSKY will blast hot, streaming content right in your face with hits like Yellowstone, Yellowjackets and a full variety of water sports. Advertisement 4 Stephen Colbert mocked Paramount's merger with Skydance Media with a series of pee jokes. CBS 'I predict PSKY will become synonymous with number one. PSKY: A pitcher of warm entertainment,' Colbert joked. CBS has maintained that the cancellation of 'The Late Show' is 'purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.' Outraged critics have accused the network of firing Colbert to appease Trump as part of its $16 million settlement with the president, which concerned a lawsuit related to a controversially-edited '60 Minutes' interview with Kamala Harris. Advertisement The FCC greenlit the $8.4 billion sale of Paramount to Skydance – which had been in limbo for a year – just a week after it was announced that Colbert was canceled. Prior to the approval, Skydance made promises to slash DEI policies at CBS and appoint a media bias ombudsman to oversee the network. 'After months of delay, the deal was finally approved by FCC chairman and brilliant handsome man who Paramount officials described as 'liquid sex', Brendan Carr,' Colbert jabbed, flashing a photo of Carr on the screen. Advertisement 4 President Trump opens his new golf course in Scotland on Tuesday. Getty Images Colbert also nodded to Trump's social media posts earlier this week slamming NBC and ABC. 'Wow, 'Concast's' NBC is down in viewership almost 28% this year. Their programming is terrible, their management even worse. They are an arm of the Democrat Party, and should be held accountable for that. Likewise, Fake News ABC!!! MAGA,' Trump wrote in a post. 'Networks aren't allowed to be political pawns for the Democrat Party. It has become so outrageous that, in my opinion, their licenses could, and should, be revoked! MAGA,' he wrote in another post. Advertisement The late-night host, who has been the frontman at 'The Late Show' for about a decade, told Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon – his counterparts at ABC and NBC – to 'come on in.' 4 Stephen Colbert mocked the new Paramount-Skydance ticker symbol. CBS 'The water's warm because of all the PSKY,' Colbert said. Colbert tore into Paramount last week for handing over millions of dollars to Trump after the media company laid off thousands of employees. 'Last year, Paramount laid off 2,000 employees, then cut another several hundred just last month,' he said. 4 FCC Chairman Brendan Carr testifies before the House in May. Getty Images Trump has said he expects an additional $20 million in advertising and public service announcements from Skydance once it takes control of Paramount, for a total $36 million settlement, confirming an exclusive report by The Post. 'Firing that many people and then handing over 36 mil to a guy who is putting your neighbors in alligator camps, all because of a lawsuit that your own lawyers said was completely without merit, if that's true, it would make CBS morally bankrupt. Also, bankrupt.'
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Stephen Colbert goes after Paramount-SkyDance merger with pee jokes
Stephen Colbert went after the SkyDance-Paramount merger on Monday during his monologue, taking aim at their new stock ticker symbol, PSKY, with pee jokes.
