In August of last year, security was tight on the Paramount lot as David Ellison hosted a meet-and-greet with the press to show off his throne as a newly minted media mogul.
Less than fourteen months later, it was deja vu as Ellison repeated the exercise, this time to tout the $110 billion worth of additional Hollywood territory he had conquered with Tuesday’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, putting him and his team at the helm of storied assets such as the Warner Bros. film studio, HBO, CNN and DC.
They join Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, CBS and a slew of cable brands already under Ellison’s purview, making his Skydance a company he believes can compete on the scale with the likes of Netflix and Disney, even as it is saddled with $80 billion in debt.
Ellison said that the combined companies will spend more on content than any other company in the world. “More than Disney, more than Netflix,” he said.
Asked about balancing making original creative swings in the face of the company’s debt, he pointed to Warner Bros. Sinners as his favorite movie of 2025, and said Skydance will not only focus on franchises, which have been Ellison’s bread and butter as a producer, but also on things audiences haven’t seen before.
“You absolutely will see us tell original stories,” Ellison said.
Among those not staying on at Skydance are Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, the Warner Bros. film chiefs who oversaw Sinners and other major hits, but who also presided over risky bombs like last weekend’s Diggers. Skydance motion picture group’s Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein will oversee both film studios.
Ellison, the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, was joined by former Mattel boss Ynon Kreiz, his new co-CEO. Kreiz offered insight into how the two movie studios would operate as one.
“The plan is to keep the studios independently creatively, so each studio will have its own slate, its own relationship, its own opportunities. Then we will choreograph the release schedule to optimize for genre and audience demographic to achieve for the company as a whole,” said Kreiz.
Kreiz said that both the Warners and Paramount lots will remain open for business, but eventually one will be the home primarily to film and the other primarily the home to TV and streaming. Both Ellison and Kreiz will maintain offices on both lots, and plan to spend about 50 percent of their time on each. Though at first, they will likely spend more time at Warners as it gets up and running.
Ellison also acknowledged that the buildup to the merger sparked backlash from some in the creative community. “This was a turbulent process, and at times an ugly process,” said Ellison. “There were significant emotions, and I really respect the people who were apprehensive about this. What I want to do now is turn the page, and make sure we are in the business of building trust.”
He said that he appreciated those in the creative community who supported the merger, and added that he would like to win the trust of those who opposed it by following through on promises such as releasing 30 movies a year between the studios and keeping CNN and CBS News editorially separate.
Ellison said, “No one company has produced 30 films a year at the quality we are hoping to achieve. One of the areas you will see us be very cautious about is doing anything to jeopardize the quality of those pictures.”