David Ellison in the 2006 film Fly Boys
Hollywood doesn't take kindly to the children of billionaires who want to become famous. Oil dynasty heir Balthazar Getty's career got off to a good start with his role as Ralph in 1990's Lord of the Flies, but leading roles have been few and far between since then. Comedian Nick Kroll, son of corporate investigator Kroll Inc founder Jules, has lent his voice to animated films such as Bob's Burgers and had a supporting role in Harry Styles' 2022 misfire Don't Worry Darling. Nicola Peltz, the daughter of anti-woke Disney investor Nelson Peltz, has come under fire for starring in the “poverty porn” film Lola.
And then there's David Ellison – son of Silicon Valley tycoon and Oracle founder Larry Ellison – who was involved in exclusive takeover talks for Paramount, home of Top Gun and Mission: Impossible, owner of Channel 5, MTV, Paramount+ and the CBS network until last week, and is now struggling to maintain a deal that is on increasingly shaky ground.
His Hollywood adventures began with a somewhat controversial acting career and some questionable production decisions (remember Geostorm, anyone?). His company, Skydance, was built with his father's billions, and despite a month-long PR campaign surrounding his proposal, and the fact that he co-produced Tom Cruise in both the Mission: Impossible franchise and Top Gun: Maverick, he has so far convinced few senior Hollywood figures to publicly support him.
In April, Ellison's offer to Skydance to buy out Paramount majority shareholder Shari Redstone by acquiring her National Amusements company, which owns 77 percent of Paramount's voting shares, for $3 billion was so attractive to Redstone that she gave him 30- daily exclusive negotiation period.
The company's remaining shareholders resisted the deal, with Sony and private equity firm Apollo Global Management offering a competing bid of $26 billion to buy all shares, not just Shari's, which apparently impressed non-Shariah shareholders. Despite feverishly calling Hollywood to get big names to recommend his proposal, Ellison has so far only secured the support of his own agent Ari Emmanuel and director James Cameron. The smart money appears to be made on the huge amount of money invested by longtime Hollywood player Sony.
Ellison appears to be learning the truth about a 2013 anecdote told by eBay billionaire Jeff Skoll in an interview with Forbes. When Skoll founded his documentary studio, Participant Media, in 2004, he says, people in Los Angeles told him, “The surest way to become a millionaire is to start out as a billionaire and get into the movie business. The streets of Hollywood are littered with the bodies of people who thought they were going to make movies in this city.” Skoll closed Participant Media in April. He lost about half a billion dollars.
Tom Cruise, David Ellison and fellow producer Dana Goldberg at the premiere of “Star Trek Into Darkness” in Los Angeles Angeles in 2013. Photo: GettyEllison does have a lot of money – at least in his trust fund. His father's gift of 90,000 Oracle shares to the foundation when the company went public in 1986 made David extremely wealthy from a very early age. He is an avid pilot and owns at least two airplanes and one helicopter. He told GQ that this explains his clean lifestyle. Traces of drugs or alcohol in his blood would mean he would lose his aerobatic license. He drives a Ferrari, lives in a beach house in Malibu and doesn't talk about any of that stuff, preferring to be taken seriously as a business leader.
David's parents divorced when he was three years old. His mother primarily raised him and his sister Megan, who acts in films through her company Annapurna Pictures, producing Zero Dark 30, American Hustle, The House of Gucci and this year's animated Oscar contender Nimon, on a horse farm in Woodside, California, one of America's wealthiest small towns. He told one interviewer that she gave him just $5 a week and made sure he completed not only his homework, but also his chores.
But one thing he did with his billionaire father was learn to fly a light plane. Ellison Sr. decided that flying would teach his son responsibility, although David's love of daring stunt flying eventually led to him dropping out of film school and heading to Tinseltown. Dad hoped that the youngest would go into business, but the boy wanted to become famous, a screen star.
Ellison's acting career has been less than stellar—which is why the indie site MovieWeb's article on the Skydance/Paramount deal was headlined, “Paramount's Future Is in the Hands of a Z-List Actor.” The 2006 film Flyboys, starring James Franco, about World War I pilots, was a box office failure with $17 million on a $60 million budget…most of which came from his father's coffers. “Every time a rich newcomer puts money into a bomb, the sharks start circling,” says Hollywood Reporter editor-in-chief Kim Masters. “The fact that this rookie was a young man who wanted to play only made the sharks swim faster.”
David Ellison advertises Top Gun: Maverick in London, May 2022. Photo: Getty
After a few more films came and went – A Hole in One, a comedy about a male student raising money to have his breast implants removed, and a small role in a small film called Little Fish, Strange Pond – he moved into producing with the help of mentors Steve Jobs and David Geffen, courtesy of his father.
“He tried to buy his way into acting, but then he had to settle on financing Paramount films – he had his ups and downs, but that's the movie game,” explains Tom Harrington, an analyst at Enders Analysis.
Ellison launched Skydance in 2009 with a four-year co-financing, production and distribution deal with Paramount that included Ellison's commitment to co-finance the next Mission: Impossible, the Jack Ryan reboot and the film that would become Top Gun: Maverick. However, the first fruit of the deal was a remake of the classic John Wayne western True Grit, directed by the Coen brothers. Jeff Bridges played “Rooster” Wayne Coburn and Hailee Steinfeld played Mattie, a 14-year-old farm girl who hires muscle to avenge her father. The film got off to an auspicious start: the film became the second-highest-grossing Western at the box office after Dances with Wolves and received 10 Oscar nominations.
According to one producer, he developed a reputation for being “detailed and focused, if wasteful.” “He reads scripts, does his homework and wants to build a long-term business, but he makes some strange decisions.” These included his attempts to get out from under the wings of the Paramount deal – the failed sci-fi film Gemini Man starring Will Smith, Geostorm about weather satellites attacking the Earth, and his personal attempt to reboot the franchise. Terminator” via the dyslexia-inducing film “Terminator Genisys”. (2015).
He also sparked a post-MeToo scandal by hiring Pixar co-founder John Lasseter to lead his animation studio just months after Disney's former chief creative officer resigned over complaints of inappropriate hugging in the workplace—the Wall Street Journal followed Lasseter the day in 2011, and even then was surprised by the 48 hugs he gave to both willing and unwilling colleagues. Lasseter later apologized to “everyone who has ever been subjected to an unwanted hug.”
Ellison issued a note noting Lasseter's admitted mistakes and apologizing, explaining that he did not take the decision lightly and that John assured him that he would “conduct himself in a completely professional manner.”
Lasseter helped make solution. relationship between Skydance and Apple that developed into a “sales deal” in February 2022 – an increasingly rare Hollywood agreement in which a distributor or streamer agrees to release films handed over by a producer, whatever those may be.
Photo: EPA/Larry Ellison at the 2017 America's Cup in Bermuda
Several other players—Jason Blum's Blumhouse, Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw, and Arnon Milchan's New Regency—have entered into similar deals, although none are as generous as Skydance. Apple. Ellison's company is guaranteed at least two fully-financed feature films per year with budgets up to approximately $125 million and guaranteed payouts of up to $25 million per film. Saving this deal may be one of the reasons he offered to buy Paramount.
This may seem like a crazy way to get a contract, but the Ellisons aren't known for careful spending. Larry once tried to import a retired Russian MiG-29, he has mansions in San Francisco, Palm Beach, Lake Tahoe, Newport, and in 2012 he bought 98 percent of the Hawaiian island of Lanai for $300 million. Soon after, he bought the island airline. To celebrate, David launched his Lanai clothing line, because that's what devoted sons do, and regularly invited Tom Cruise to join him.
Larry quickly set about making changes on the island. Finding the local food “inedible,” he first built Nobu, then added a Four Seasons resort, a luxury spa, the Sensei Retreat, and plans to turn the island into a self-sustaining “wellness utopia.” Forbes interview. It's this kind of thinking that leads Harrington to point out that “whether the deal is good or not is in some ways irrelevant.”
View this post on Instagram
Published by Four Seasons Resorts Lānaʻi (@fslanai)
David clearly wants to start a studio, even though film is “a boom-bust sector that's hard to model or trust—especially now,” Harrington adds. “Such acquisitions may seem irrational. It is highly doubtful that he will show interest in CBS, Channel 5, Network 10, etc., which could have broader implications in various markets.”
This life choice of “irrational acquisition” makes Ellison the personification of Silicon Valley's unexpected genuflection when it comes to Hollywood. California's tech sector has spent decades gobbling up and reshaping industries like real estate, travel, taxis and the music industry as it sees fit. However, when streamers came to Hollywood, the disruption model faltered. Weekly specials, live sports broadcasts and network sitcoms, which were also edgy dramas that appeared immediately on the network, gradually began to be replaced. Filmmakers are also finding that the direct-to-video streaming model is a failure.
David Ellison at the premiere of Mission: Impossible – Fallout in 2018. Photo: Getty
“Streamers have always argued that exclusive streaming of movies is valuable,” explains anonymous industry blogger Entertainment Strategy Guy. “This is the main bet of Netflix, Apple and Amazon. But when I worked for a major streamer, I had a lot of data showing that theatrical films outperformed live-action films in terms of performance, viewership, interest and more. Given that theatrical films, you know, also make money at the box office, they generally make more money than films that are released in just one window.”
Is this deal David's attempt to get out of it? his father's shadow? They've already gone their separate ways politically, with David donating $1 billion to Biden's campaign, while Larry isn't funding Trump this time around but has supported him in the past. But he, like the rest of the Valley, discovers that filmmakers are filmmakers.
Ellison still has a chance to win. Some in Hollywood would prefer Paramount to remain independent after seeing 20th Century Fox disappear to Disney. Sony's acquisition of Paramount would likely have the same effect. David Ellison, “Z-List Actor,” may be Paramount's only hope.
Recent Comments