The newly minted executive leadership team at Skydance, led by chairman and CEO Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, held an on-the-record press gaggle at the Paramount lot in Hollywood, hours after their hard-fought acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery officially closed. Both in jeans and black blazers, Ellison and Kreiz fielded questions from the national press for nearly 30 minutes on the lot’s Stage 3.
The event kicked off with a high-octane trailer showcasing the staggering amount of IP Skydance now owns — from Batman to “Game of Thrones,” the Star Trek universe to “Scream.” Present for the event were RedBird Capital founder and Skydance board member Gerry Cardinale; Skydance president Andy Gordon; chief legal officer and global president Makan Delrahim; motion picture group co-chairs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein; chief content officer Casey Bloys; DC Studios co-chair Peter Safran; Skydance CMO Rebecca Mall; DTC exec JB Perrette and many more. Here’s what Variety learned on the ground. Having acquired a jewel like the Warner Bros. lot, along with the historic Paramount spread, questions turned to where, exactly, Ellison and Kreiz will lay their briefcases.
No final decisions, of course, have been made. How will Ellison and Kreiz handle individual duties? The former Mattel CEO addressed their respective workloads.
I will focus more on the operations and the day-to-day management of the business, including integration, particularly the first phase. But it’s important to say that we work closely together. It’s not that David will not be very involved in integration and key operational decisions, or that I will not be involved in creative matters.” A tense moment came as a reporter grilled Ellison on the company’s ties to President Trump.
The journalist referenced an early comment from Ellison that he’d had “great conversations with Donald Trump about CNN.” Pressed for the contents of those talks about the cable news giant he just acquired, Ellison said, “For absolute clarity, we have not talked to any political leader of any party about news, other than to say that we want to be in the truth business and we want to be in the trust business, and we believe in complete editorial independence.” A rep asked the mogul to provide more context on why he’s spent months traveling to D.C. Paramount’s domestic production level is about 5%. These jobs are being shipped overseas.
Almost no filming happens here in California, which is the birthplace of the business. That’s something we want to change,” Ellison said. We had multiple meetings with the president and Senator Graham, which is really what got the president to effectively say, ‘Yes, I see this, and yes, I want to support this.’ A federal rebate can only get done bipartisan.” Ellison and Kreiz explained that new motion picture chiefs Goldberg and Greenstein will be responsible for “choreographing” the release schedules for the combined Warner Bros. and Paramount film slate, which boasts 35 movies in its first year.
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