Can He Save Paramount? Hollywood Takes a Hard Look at David Ellison’s Mogul Ambitions
Let’s talk about the David of it all.
The new chairman and CEO of the soon-to-be-combined Skydance and Paramount Global — Hollywood producer and Oracle heir David Ellison — has had quite the week, and it’s only Wednesday.
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Show business, Wall Street and media watchers have digested the news that Ellison finally brokered a deal for the Redstone family empire. In the subsequent two days, talk around the executive’s capability in his new high-flying role has boiled down to three questions: Who is David Ellison today? What does he bring to the table? What does he have working against him?
The town has many thoughts — most of them good in these early days.
“He’s been a CEO and a successful one, probably the most successful independent there is,” said Ariel Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor and TKO Group Holdings.
Variety surveyed a range of C-suite executives, dealmakers, creatives and talent to assemble a picture of a mogul-in-the-making, phase two.
Who is present-day David?
Ellison has come a long way since 2015, when his infamous and first-ever magazine profile “The Kid Pays for the Picture” hit newsstands in the pages of GQ. It was accompanied by a portrait of Ellison strapped into an open parachute, meant to evoke the sleek stunts of films he has financed like “Mission: Impossible” and a rebooted “Terminator” series. Instead it became a punchline, and has evolved into sort of a badge of honor. Surviving bad press (or its terrifying sister, laughable press) is part of building staying power in Hollywood.
Peers and sources close to Ellison say he, too, has evolved — from a rich kid polishing a collection of jets to an even-lower-profile family man. At 41, Ellison still has the constitution of a choir boy and would rather be kayaking with his kids off Maui than greasing up for the Met Gala (unlike some of his counterparts).
“I find him pretty methodical,” one content chief told Variety on the condition of anonymity. “Temperamentally, he doesn’t seem like he’d do anything rash.”
Ellison has always been a self-confessed fan boy in the arenas of tech and cinema. He once detailed a childhood collection of 3,000 VHS tapes (only a few titles were rewatched obsessively, like “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Jurassic Park”). He landed his first job at 13 as a computer coder at dad Larry Ellison’s tech firm. And let us not forget the crucial myth-building tale of tiny Ellison playing on the floor of Steve Jobs’ office at the Apple campus.
All this tracks, given Ellison’s pledge to power Paramount with game-changing proprietary technology. That, and the cash and deep talent relationships it will take to make the media giant a first-stop for creatives and superstars.
What does he bring to the boardroom?
Numerous analysts have likened the Skydance acquisition of Paramount Global to a minnow swallowing a whale. It’s not unfair. While Skydance is nearing its 20th birthday (only 10 of those years as a television producer), it’s nowhere close to the scale and intricacy of the multinational Paramount. The hard-driving dealmakers who Ellison will rely on to supply hits and bolster market confidence are undaunted.
“Over time, David built his business in a slow-but-fast-process,” said Emanuel.
The Endeavor chief credited Ellison for scaling up his theatrical film business and pivoting to streaming, especially during the chaos of COVID-19, as well as investing in augmented and virtual reality and entering a content partnership with the NFL. When it comes to managing and winning over talent, which Emanuel knows a bit about, he said Ellison “isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. He cares about the creative process, and if there’s an issue he picks up the phone and works it out.”
Tyler Perry, a prolific creator for Paramount-owned BET Networks, said it was encouraging to have “someone who loves this business at the helm of one of the most storied studios.” Jane Fonda, who co-starred with Lily Tomlin for seven seasons on the Skydance-produced Netflix comedy “Grace & Frankie,” gave her thumbs up, saying a marriage “ensures that I get to continue the collaboration with an incredibly talented and enthusiastic film family.” Fonda also was part of the voice cast of the 2022 Skydance Animation feature “Luck.”
What’s he up against?
Superlatives come easy when the ink is fresh on the sale agreement, but that doesn’t change the reality that there are monumental challenges ahead for Paramount and other legacy Hollywood brands whose businesses are rooted in linear TV and theatrical box office. For all the hype around streaming, traditional entertainment giants still make most of their money the same way they did 20 years ago.
“I wonder what David can really, really do with these assets,” said another studio leader. Linear cable networks, which Paramount has in spades, have long been in decline. The conglomerate’s streaming platform Paramount+ has taken billions of dollars in resources to launch and not drawn as many subscribers as larger competitors such as Netflix and Disney+. Despite big action and family franchises, as well as recent genre hits under Paramount Pictures chief Brian Robbins, it’s still rarely the first stop for film agents and producers with a hot property to sell. Others look at Skydance’s theatrical output through the same lens.
“The question mark around David is about taste and quality. Every CEO thinks they’re a cinephile, but the Skydance track record isn’t great outside of franchises,” the studio exec added.
The less said of Skydance films like the 2017 rebooted “Baywatch” and Will Smith’s 2019 dud “Gemini Man” the better. Those titles came midlife for Skydance, and the last few years have been much kinder. Who could argue with the almost $1.5 billion box office for “Top Gun: Maverick” and the high-earning “Mission: Impossible”series (both are “willed into existence” by Tom Cruise, multiple players noted). Ellison also did well protecting his bottom line and boosting streamers with projects “6 Underground,” the Michael Bay and Ryan Reynolds team-up which sits among Netflix’s most-viewed films of all time. He also drove star power for the same service with Charlize Theron’s “The Old Guard” and Gal Gadot’s “Heart of Stone.”
At Paramount, challenges will also come from within at a company of nearly 22,000 employees (with cuts inevitably coming). Ellison stepped in it five years ago when hiring John Lasseter, the Pixar whiz who reinvented family films, after he was ousted from Disney’s kingdom following accusations of inappropriate conduct with staff. In 2019, Ellison told his company that leadership did a serious vet of the Lasseter allegations and had arrived at the decision to hire him with “great care.” The news broke bad, however, as female staffers were stunned (some cried) and outside groups criticized the decision. Emma Thompson, meant to voice a role in “Luck,” dropped out as a result. In sum: employees were devastated, talent was pissed and Ellison wound up in a rare position as the subject of international media coverage.
“I mishandled how he came onboard, and I take responsibility for that. There should have been greater transparency, and I should have taken more time to listen and learn from our team and our talent partners,” Ellison told the New York Times in 2021, adding that it made him a better leader.
Speaking of which, a number of Ellison’s competitors and partners speculated over how he’ll work with Jeff Shell as his top lieutenant. The former NBCUniversal chief was ousted in April 2023 and admitted to having had an “inappropriate relationship” with a female NBCUniversal employee. He’s now set to become president under Ellison as chairman-CEO, if the Skydance-Paramount deal is approved by regulators — and if controlling shareholder Shari Redstone isn’t bowled over by a better offer that materializes over the next month.
“Who is going to talk to the street?” one talent agency partner wondered. After Shari Redstone signed the deal on Sunday, Ellison took lead in talking to press with Shell chiming in. Ellison made a solo appearance on Wednesday, chatting up the transaction on CNBC. One senior industry executive familiar with Shell said the seasoned operator will be an asset to his new boss in the months ahead, even if his #MeToo baggage has raised some eyebrows around town.
“Jeff is really good at getting into broken businesses. He’s not afraid to do the hard things, like firing people,” one source said.
Endeavor’s Emanuel sees a road ahead for Ellison and Paramount that banks largely on growing its streaming business and investing in heftier tech infrastructure. “If they make the right cuts, synergize and deliver on SVOD and AVOD – and build their own tech underneath it — it can be wildly successful,” he said.
For now, we wait and see.
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