Paramount’s New Boss Has One Mission: Make Hollywood Watchable Again

The Left owns Hollywood lock, stock, and barrel. Or, to be more accurate, used to own.

New media rebels are finally giving the progressive monopoly some small but fiery competition. Think “The Joe Rogan Experience,” a contrarian podcast where alternative perspectives get millions of views across media platforms. Or a certain conservative outlet that produced the most popular documentary of the last decade.

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter-turned-X struck another blow against the Left’s pop culture cartel. Still, the Left’s near stranglehold on the arts remains in place, leaving a David vs. Goliath battle in progress.

Enter David Ellison, a corporate titan with a small but mighty slingshot.

Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The CEO of Skydance Media is now a major player in the entertainment space following his company’s acquisition of Paramount. And he could loom even larger should Skydance add Warner Bros. Discovery to its portfolio.

Ellison isn’t a number-crunching executive handing the creative side off to colleagues. His company’s biography says he “oversees the entire Skydance film slate.”

The son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison (one of the world’s richest men) is personally invested in entertainment, above and beyond his background with USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and memberships in the Producers Guild of America and the Television Academy.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

An expansive Variety profile suggests he’s willing to shake up the status quo in order to stay profitable in an uncertain time for film and TV studios. The old ways no longer work, he believes, and there’s plenty of evidence to back him up, given Hollywood’s uncertain present.

The bigger issue, one that could turn the cultural tide? He’s MAGA=adjacent. President Donald Trump has referred to the Ellisons as “friends” and “big supporters.” 

Exaggerations? Possibly. The younger Ellison has been coy about his ties to Trump, telling a press gaggle earlier this year that he wanted to avoid political conversations.

“Half my family is Democrat, half my family is Republican … I don’t intend to put my finger on the scale.”

That’s both an improvement on the status quo and something that speaks to both the cultural moment and the sense that Hollywood, Inc. has spent years alienating a huge swath of the country at its peril.

Ellison could make a sizable play for said swath by playing it down the middle. And, on occasion, reaching out to the Right when it makes sense. 

He recently partnered with the Trump administration to bring a UFC extravaganza to the White House lawn next year. That’s part of the company’s $7.7 billion (with a B) UFC deal. That sport skews decidedly young and male, a far cry from the “toxic masculinity” cries circulating in some Hollywood projects.

Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Team UFC isn’t in lockstep with the Democrats like most sports, either. You won’t find an “End Racism” logo on any octagon. Some MMA stars are pro-Trump, while key figures like Rogan and UFC CEO Dana White both endorsed the leader’s 2024 campaign.

Ellison recently acquired the center-driven Free Press news outlet and hired founder Bari Weiss to restore CBS News as a trustworthy platform.

Weiss, a center-Left lesbian with a passion for old-school journalism, is the kind of person few people of Ellison’s status would embrace. He chose her anyway, hoping she would restore the CBS brand to its former glory. She quickly axed departments tied to race and climate.

That Variety profile mentions upcoming Ellison projects, such as a “Top Gun” sequel, the Heartland hit that Hollywood has yet to Xerox in any meaningful fashion. The only recent film to capture “Top Gun: Maverick’s” spirit? “F1,” the Brad Pitt racing film from earlier this year. Both hit films were shot by the same director, Joseph Kosinski.

Leon Bennett/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

Other Ellison films include a “Call of Duty” video game adaptation from Trump-friendly director Peter Berg and a cowboy feature the liberal outlet dubbed a “Western version of ‘Taken.’”

For years, Hollywood seemed willing to lose money in order to push a progressive message. The best example? It kept late-night TV reflexively liberal, ignoring viewers who craved a second opinion. Fox News shamed the industry by giving right-leaning Greg Gutfeld a late-night showcase, and his ratings numbers now speak for themselves.

That’s called leaving money on the table. Would Team Ellison do that?

CBS famously put an end to Stephen Colbert’s reign on “The Late Show,” giving him until May of 2026 to peddle his nonstop Trump barbs. That move came a month before Skydance acquired Paramount, Colbert’s then-employer.

As Variety reported, “…Stephanie Kyoko McKinnon, Skydance’s general counsel and co-president of business operations, said in part … “Skydance was “not involved” in CBS’s decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert…”

None of this means Ellison plans to turn Skydance into a Fox News-like media empire. No channels dedicated to Dinesh D’Souza documentaries or Chuck Norris films. It’s far more significant than that, potentially.

Ellison’s mission could give half the nation a veritable safe space, a company that won’t insult them and, on occasion, deliver content that speaks to their values. Hollywood needs fresh thinking and a way to reach audiences who have been chased away by A-list talent for far too long.

A key reason why the Oscars, a once-beloved TV institution, is no longer a ratings juggernaut is that too many stars rage against the show’s audience. Viewers hate them back by turning the channel.

Megastars no longer move the political needle every four years, in part, due to that animosity.

An Ellison-ized Hollywood could tell stories that would never otherwise be told. Imagine features on how Venezuela’s socialism crashed a once-prosperous nation. Or heroic tales that speak to the best American values, not just Oscar-bait dramas reeking of greedy capitalists or cruel men of faith.

It’s the kind of industry shake-up Hollywood needs, and it may take a billionaire of Ellison’s status to make it happen. Or, as screenwriter William Goldman said about Hollywood, “nobody knows anything.”

But if Ellison bucks conventional wisdom, he actually could make Hollywood great again.

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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic, and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.