Copyright NBC News
LOS ANGELES — When Paramount executives met with Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning over Zoom in September about a sexy new legal thriller the actresses are producing with A24, they made a passionate case for why the project should land at their studio. Executives told the A-listers that the show, titled “Discretion,” could help entice a new, more female-driven audience to Paramount+, according to multiple sources who were at the meeting. Their pitch — along with a bid that beat out six other studios — worked. Within days, the deal was done, making “Discretion” the latest among dozens of agreements the David Ellison-owned studio has closed since the $8 billion merger between Skydance and Paramount Global was completed in August. Executives at the studio have been making a bullish pitch to many Hollywood players and spending big for high profile projects. About a dozen industry insiders who spoke to NBC News — including talent agents, producers and executives — said the studio is aggressively closing deals with top talent and signaling to the entertainment industry what the tech-driven future of the company will look like. In addition to “Discretion,” Paramount has landed a Timothée Chalamet-starring crime drama, a four-year film, TV and streaming deal with the Duffer brothers (the duo behind “Stranger Things”) and a multipicture deal with Will Smith’s production company. Many who were interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they’re wary of discussing Ellison on the record as they try to broker deals with the studio and its competitors. They describe Paramount executives leading with a confidence that is lacking at many of their less resourced competitors right now, and a mandate to make mainstream movies in the action, horror and comedy genres. Representatives for Paramount Skydance declined to comment for this article. Paramount, the 113-year-old studio behind legendary movies like “The Godfather” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” not to mention the “Yellowstone” TV franchise, is beginning to take shape under Ellison, who previously founded Skydance Productions. Ellison, 42, has long described himself as a film buff. He studied film at the University of Southern California, and often talks about how he and his sister, Megan Ellison (founder of Annapurna Pictures), grew up going to the movies together. Under David Ellison's leadership, Skydance helped finance reboots of the “Terminator” and the “Mission Impossible” franchises, which were distributed in theaters by Paramount. In a Hollywood that’s in the midst of economic contraction, a large part of Paramount’s appeal to producers and talent is the stability of its financing, which came primarily from Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who invested $6 billion, and a consortium of other investors, including the private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners. On Nov. 10, Ellison is set to deliver his first earnings call as CEO, where he’s expected to articulate the studio’s strategy and financial outlook just weeks after Paramount Skydance began laying off what is expected to be some 2,000 employees. Ellison has touted the technological sophistication he plans to bring to the studio, underpinned by Oracle’s computing platform and by AI. “We’re not going to be afraid of technology; we’re going to embrace it,” Ellison said during a press conference in New York after the Paramount deal closed in August. In meetings with talent in recent weeks, Paramount executives have shared a little more, talking up the company’s ability to find audiences for their films and shows among increasingly distracted consumers, in part by relying on targeted AI marketing tools. The breathless pace of deal making, which has kept Paramount lawyers working through weekends to pore over contracts, comes as Ellison is actively bidding to own yet another Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. Discovery. Many industry sources are wary of that deal coming together, saying they fear it could lead to more layoffs, less spending and a homogenization of the kinds of TV shows and films that get made. Some point, grimly, to when Disney bought Fox in 2019, laid off 3,000 people and drastically reduced the number of Fox films that go into theaters. “If the movies are all coming from one company, how many risks are you willing to take?” asked Daniel Loria, senior vice president of the Boxoffice Company, a theatrical ecommerce and data services firm. “We’re just coming off of the Disney/Fox merger where we saw that one plus one equals a lot less than two.” When asked about a possible Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal, one head of a midsize theater chain said he was “concerned.” “You have to assume there would be a significant reduction in output,” he said. “It’s not good for movie theaters, it’s not good for consumers.” Others in the industry have also raised alarms about the deal potentially leading to fewer opportunities. In a statement in October, the Writers Guild of America called the prospect of a Paramount-WBD deal “a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition” and vowed to work with regulators to block the merger. But Ellison has been pitching his company as a boon to theaters and moviegoers. He’s said he wants Paramount to produce 20 films a year, up from its current production of 11-14 films per year, and that if he succeeds in buying Warner Bros., the two companies combined would produce 30 films a year, matching their current output. To get to that level of production, Paramount has been in expansion mode, signing a three-year distribution pact with Legendary Entertainment that will start with a 2026 “Street Fighter” movie and a 10-year lease for more than 285,000 square feet of production space in Bayonne, New Jersey. Ellison has filled out his executive team, enlisting Skydance’s Dana Goldberg as co-chair of Paramount Pictures and chair of Paramount Television, former Sony executive Josh Greenstein as co-chair of Paramount Pictures and vice chair of Platforms, and former Netflix VP Cindy Holland as chair of direct-to-consumer. Paramount is even dipping into genres that have largely disappeared from theaters over the past decade, like original R-rated comedies— the studio bought a spec script for one called “Bald Eagles.” Much of Paramount’s recent spending is intended to attract new subscribers to its streaming service, Paramount+. The service, which launched in 2021 and now has 77 million subscribers, was largely built on the back of popular shows from “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan. But last month, NBC News confirmed that Sheridan struck a new film and TV deal at rival NBCUniversal, with the film deal starting in 2026, and the TV deal in 2029. (Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is the parent company of NBC News.) Still, Ellison has been looking elsewhere, including into sports programming, to diversify Paramount’s offerings. In August, he struck a 7-year, $7.7 billion deal for UFC rights. And Sheridan still has at least one massive project for Paramount coming up: A “Call of Duty” adaptation, which he will write and produce alongside director Peter Berg. “Could not be more excited about this!” Ellison wrote in an Instagram post sharing the news last week.
