David Ellison was born on January 9, 1983, in Santa Clara County, California. He is an American film producer, a former actor, and a major force in the entertainment industry. Ellison is the founder of Skydance Media and the current Chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance Corporation. He has made a name for himself in Hollywood by combining creative ambition with technological innovation. David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, one of the founders of Oracle Corporation, used his family’s money and his own love of making movies to build a media empire. In 2025, Skydance Media and Paramount Global merged, which was a big deal.
Life and Schooling in the Beginning
David Ellison grew up in Woodside, California, where his mother, Barbara Boothe Ellison, taught him to love movies. His father, Larry Ellison, a billionaire tech mogul of Italian and Jewish descent, set an example of how to be an entrepreneur. David went to the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, but he left in 2005 to work on his first movie, Flyboys, which was about World War I airmen and also starred him. This early project was the start of his journey into Hollywood. A family friend, Steve Jobs, told him to improve his vision for Skydance Media by focusing on telling great stories, like Pixar does.
Ellison’s love of flying also had an effect on his career. He was a licensed pilot with ratings for helicopters, aerobatics, commercial aviation, fixed-wing aircraft, and multi-engine planes. He got the idea for his company from aerobatic moves called “skydancing.” He was 20 years old and part of Sean D. Tucker’s “Stars of Tomorrow” aerobatic team at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2003. This showed how brave and disciplined he was when it came to high-stakes activities.
Starting Skydance Media
Ellison started Skydance Media (originally Skydance Productions) in 2006 with the goal of making “elevated, event-level entertainment for global audiences.” With a $350 million investment from his father and a strategic partnership with Paramount Pictures in 2009, Skydance quickly became a major player in Hollywood. The Coen Brothers’ True Grit (2010) was the company’s first big hit. It made more than $250 million worldwide on a $38 million budget and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Ellison led Skydance to make a number of hit franchises, such as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond, Jack Reacher, and World War Z. Top Gun: Maverick (2022) was the studio’s biggest hit. It made almost $1.5 billion around the world, was the highest-grossing movie of the year, and got Ellison an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.
In 2013, Skydance started making TV shows in addition to movies. They made popular shows for Netflix like Grace and Frankie and Altered Carbon, and for Apple TV+ like Foundation. Ellison started Skydance Animation in 2017, working with Spain’s Ilion Animation Studios and hiring John Lasseter, who used to be the head of Pixar, to run the division. The animation slate includes movies like Luck (2022) and Spellbound (2024), which are available through deals with Netflix and Apple TV+. Skydance Interactive made games like Archangel and The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. They also worked with the NFL to make sports-related content through Skydance Sports.
Skydance grew thanks to strategic partnerships. In 2018, the company worked with Tencent Holdings. Then, in 2020, it raised $275 million in equity with RedBird Capital and CJ E&M, bringing Skydance’s value to $2.3 billion. KKR and the Ellison family led an investment round in 2022 that raised the company’s value to more than $4 billion. These partnerships helped Skydance reach more people around the world, especially in the South Korean entertainment market.
A New Chapter in the Paramount Merger
In 2024, Ellison made his biggest move yet when he led Skydance’s $8 billion merger with Paramount Global, buying National Amusements, its parent company, from Shari Redstone. The merger was approved by the FCC in July 2025 and finished on August 7, 2025. It made Paramount Skydance Corporation, with Ellison as Chairman and CEO. He became one of the most powerful people in Hollywood because the deal gave him control of a media empire that included Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV, and Paramount+.
Ellison wants to turn Paramount into a “tech-forward company” by using AI, cloud computing (with Oracle’s infrastructure), and advanced analytics to make production more efficient and improve the streaming capabilities of Paramount+. He wants to break up Paramount into three parts: Studios, Direct-to-Consumer, and TV Media. This will make the company more efficient and profitable. Ellison has said that technology will enhance, not replace, human creativity. He has pointed to tools like virtual production stages and AI-assisted localization as ways to reach more people around the world.
After former President Donald Trump sued over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, people were concerned about the merger, especially about CBS News’ editorial independence. In July 2025, Ellison met with Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC. He promised to uphold “unbiased journalism” and “diverse viewpoints” at CBS and denied claims that Tencent’s minority stake gave it foreign influence. He also said he would hire a CBS News ombudsman to make sure everything was clear.
Leadership and Problems
Ellison’s leadership team at Paramount is made up of both experienced Hollywood professionals and strategic partners. Dana Goldberg, who has worked for Skydance for a long time, is in charge of Paramount Pictures with Josh Greenstein, who used to work for Sony. Cindy Holland, who used to work for Netflix, is in charge of Paramount+ and Pluto TV. Andy Gordon is the COO and chief strategy officer at RedBird Capital, and Jeff Shell, the former CEO of NBCUniversal, is the president. After the merger, only George Cheeks, a Paramount executive, stayed on.
There have been problems during Ellison’s time in office. In 2023, Skydance lost $56 million, and in the first half of 2024, its sales fell by 40%, in part because of strikes in Hollywood. Some people, like an investor on Wall Street, didn’t like the $4.75 billion price tag on the Paramount deal. Ellison’s choice to hire John Lasseter in 2019, after Lasseter left Disney because of #MeToo allegations, also caused a stir, but Lasseter’s leadership helped Skydance Animation grow.
Life and Legacy
Ellison married actress and singer Sandra Lynn Modic in 2011 in Palm Springs, California. They live in Southern California with their two kids. Ellison is a member of the Producers Guild of America and the Television Academy. He has always loved movies and is a risk-taker in both the air and the boardroom.
David Ellison‘s rise from dropping out of USC to becoming a media mogul is like the high-stakes stories in the movies he makes. With Paramount Skydance Corporation, he is ready to change the future of Hollywood by combining big-budget stories with the latest technology. Ellison’s ambition and ability to adapt will determine whether he can make Paramount a powerful company in the 21st century as the media landscape changes quickly.
