Copyright outkick
It's no secret: Hollywood is in trouble. The movie business is in free fall; box office revenues have declined rapidly. Once invincible studios or properties like Marvel and Disney have been on a losing streak. There have been few event movies to grab big audiences, and awards shows like the Academy Awards have never been less meaningful. Politics has infested the entertainment industry, to its great detriment. While Hollywood has leaned left for decades, only recently has it become a central focus for much of the creative talent. And as the left continues to drift further from middle America, so too, has the content coming from left-wing movie studios. Disney's expensive, high-profile franchise release "Tron: Ares" was yet another recent disaster. Actor Jeff Bridges took the opportunity, during the promotional campaign, to insert his own political messages into interviews. RELATED: Another Big Budget Disney Movie Flops At The Box Office After Politicized Promo How much that hurt box office, or didn't, is up for debate. But it represented the bizarre focus of liberal actors in alienating a huge percentage of the country. One studio, though, is seemingly trying to stop the descent by taking advantage of the industry's disinterest in ~160 million people. Paramount Pictures, which is now under the control of David Ellison, is looking to make more films that resonate with wider audiences. For that crime, they're being relentlessly attacked by industry media and the Hollywood left. Variety Attacks David Ellison, Paramount, For Not Being Far Left Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is part of the effort to bring a UFC fight to the White House lawn in June 2026. UFC is immensely popular, it's around the 250th anniversary of the United States, and the novelty factor will surely lead to huge viewership. Sounds like a reasonable thing to be involved with, right? Not to left-wing entertainment industry media outlets. Variety published a lengthy story recently on the changes at Paramount under Ellison, couching it as a bit of an "exposé" of his and Paramount's priorities. It's every bit as ridiculous as you'd expect. On the UFC Fight, the author describes it as reminiscent of "Idiocracy," and describes aligning with the organization as a concerning brush with "MAGA messaging." "While the spectacle might sound like a discarded scene from the 2006 dystopian comedy "Idiocracy," it provides a glimpse into Ellison’s rising empire," the article says, "One that skews alpha male and that some fear will entwine the studio’s content more closely with MAGA messaging." "Hollywood may be wary of the Ellison family," it says later. They then criticize Ellison and Paramount for buying "The Free Press," and installing Bari Weiss as head of CBS News. Why? Because even though she's center-left herself, she supports Israel. Ellison also, GASP, hired a "political conservative" in an important executive role. "It has also slashed staff and dispensed with top Paramount executives at a dizzying rate, replacing them with executives with unfashionable — by Hollywood standards — viewpoints, from vocal Israel supporters (CBS News editor-in-chief Weiss) to political conservatives (Paramount co-chair Josh Greenstein), and jumped into business with a new brand of power brokers…" The horror! Imagine. Just imagine. A political conservative, a single political conservative, in an industry run into the ground by thousands of far-left liberals. We're not done. As part of efforts to streamline the studios operations, and as is frequently the case after acquisitions, Ellison and Paramount laid off a substantial portion of staff. To Variety, that's right out of the "MAGA playbook." Seriously. "Taking a page from the MAGA playbook, Ellison doesn’t seem to care about optics. An Oct. 29 round of roughly 1,000 layoffs hit women in high-profile roles hard. Among the 14 reported TV executives who received a pink slip — spanning CBS, BET and MTV — 11 were women. Over at CBS News, some cuts — like Tracy Wholf, a senior producer of climate and environmental coverage — were viewed as Trump-friendly moves. One staffer says that the ax conspicuously fell on those whose reporting featured an anti-Israel bent, including foreign correspondent Debora Patta, who had been covering the war in Gaza for the past three years. A source close to Paramount says the October layoffs were not motivated by MAGA politics or gender." Because Variety is so consumed by left-wing politics, they simply can't understand that there is zero return on investment for "climate and environmental coverage," because an overwhelming majority of people have come to realize that the predictions of climate doom have been repeatedly proven false. That the catastrophizing of Al Gore and broadcast media has seamlessly shifted from one message to another as their forecasts are comprehensively discredited. Who cares, too, what the gender composition of laid-off executives are? Variety does, looking for dogwhistles of "MAGA politics" wherever it can. Hollywood Can't Get Out Of Its Own Way The horrors continue for left-wing Hollywood, as Ellison's strategy at Paramount is reportedly to focus on films that are "America-centric" and seek to bring middle America moviegoers back to theaters. "Some of the films that Paramount is greenlighting, including a movie about a cowboy and his dog searching for his missing daughter that’s been likened to a Western version of "Taken," were described as 'America-centric' and geared toward the middle of the country," the article says. One such film is being directed by Peter Berg, who, per the article, committed the ultimate entertainment industry sin: saying something positive about Donald Trump. "Directing the film is Peter Berg, who recently said on "The Joe Rogan Experience," ‘I think Trump’s doing some great things’ — the type of sentiment that could land talent on a blacklist anywhere but Paramount." Just imagine how insane it is that even the most mild of praise, "doing some great things," would be enough for some studios to simply not work with a talented, high-profile producer and director. And Hollywood wonders why it's dying. Finally, Variety breathlessly reports that "some employees have conspicuously changed the channel to Fox News." Is there any greater crime? Unlikely. This entire article summarizes beautifully the rot at the core of the entertainment industry, and why it has struggled so mightily in recent years. The industry is completely and comprehensively consumed by left-wing politics. It doesn't accept other viewpoints, doesn't tolerate them, and is willing to blacklist and shut out any alternate voices. For a business ostensibly meant to appeal to the widest possible audience, not only has Hollywood not tried to, it has actively scorned it. It's almost impossible to have a dumber set of priorities than modern Hollywood. Sure enough, it's been costly. Ellison, who hasn't spoken publicly about politics to any great degree, is simply not a member of the far left. He's pragmatic, seeing an opportunity to seize on a massive potential viewing audience that's mostly deserted his industry. While the rest of the studios continue to struggle, he's made the obviously correct bet that there's potential to be tapped by simply not telling half the country that you hate them. And Variety and rival left-wing executives can't believe it.
