4 weeks into his tenure as CEO of the newly merged Paramount Skydance Company, David Ellison has wasted no time placing his stamp on the corporate. Since formally taking the reins on Aug. 7, the 42-year-old mogul has moved at breakneck pace—putting billion-dollar offers, wooing artistic expertise, greenlighting main franchises, and even courting a controversial media startup.
Ellison promised to remodel the legacy studio right into a “tech-forward firm that blends the artistic coronary heart of Hollywood with the modern spirit of Silicon Valley,” he stated in a technique memo final month. Right here’s a have a look at how he’s already begun to make good on that promise:
The UFC inks a cope with Paramount
On Aug. 11, Ellison introduced a blockbuster $7.7 billion settlement making Paramount the unique U.S. house of the UFC blended martial arts group starting in 2026. The deal will transfer UFC away from its pay-per-view mannequin and ship its lineup of annual occasions on to Paramount+ subscribers, with some simulcast on Paramount-owned CBS.
“Stay sports activities proceed to be a cornerstone of our broader technique,” Ellison stated when unveiling the deal. “The addition of UFC’s year-round must-watch occasions to our platforms is a serious win.”
The hope is that Paramount+, which trails rivals like Netflix and HBO Max with 77.7 million subscribers (as of June), may discover in UFC the type of viewers magnet it desperately wants.
Including to that technique: Ellison not too long ago tapped Cindy Holland, the previous Netflix government who helped drive its early progress, to supervise all of Paramount’s streaming efforts.
The Duffer brothers be a part of Paramount
Only a week after the UFC announcement, Ellison unveiled one other coup: a four-year partnership with Matt and Ross Duffer, the artistic duo behind Stranger Issues. Beginning in 2026, the brothers will develop movies and collection by their Upside Down Photos banner for Paramount Photos, Paramount Tv and Paramount+.
The Duffers framed the transfer as a homecoming, reuniting with Paramount executives Holland and Matt Thunell, who championed Stranger Issues at Netflix again in 2015. The deal sends a message to Hollywood creatives that Paramount intends to be, as he put it in his technique memo, “the primary name for filmmakers and artists searching for a artistic house that champions their work.”
Ellison ranges up with Name of Obligation and Avenue Fighter
Ellison, an avid gamer who admits to spending “numerous hours” taking part in Name of Obligation, can also be pushing Paramount into online game IP. On Sept. 2, the corporate introduced a live-action characteristic movie tailored from Activision’s Name of Obligation franchise, which has offered greater than 500 million copies over 20 years. Calling the mission “actually a dream come true,” Ellison likened it to Paramount’s 2022 blockbuster Prime Gun: Maverick, pledging the identical “disciplined, uncompromising dedication to excellence.”
Two days later got here one other headline: a multi-year world distribution cope with Legendary Leisure. The partnership will debut with Avenue Fighter in 2026, co-produced with Capcom and filmed for IMAX. Legendary CEO Josh Grode hailed the pact as an “extraordinary alternative” to succeed in audiences worldwide.
Courting The Free Press founder Bari Weiss
Amongst Ellison’s whirlwind first-month strikes, none has drawn extra controversy than his reported bid to accumulate Bari Weiss’s The Free Press and produce her right into a senior position at CBS Information.
Puck’s Dylan Byers reviews Ellison pitched Weiss, the journalist who grew her Substack right into a multimillion-dollar media model, throughout July’s Allen & Co. convention in Solar Valley. Talks have reportedly intensified, with Byers’ sources saying a deal is “on the one-yard line.”
Ellison’s plan reportedly consists of giving Weiss a serious decision-making position at CBS Information, although the likelihood has already sparked blowback from some staffers, who’re griping off the report to reporters.
Ellison seems keen to guess on Weiss’s mixture of contrarian politics and viewers loyalty. That might complicate his pledge, made the day the Paramount-Skydance merger closed, that he doesn’t need to politicize the brand new firm “in any manner, form or type.”
Return-to-office for Paramount staff
Ellison’s opening month hasn’t been all wins. The CEO additionally rolled out a return-to-office coverage efficient January subsequent yr, requiring staff to be within the workplace 5 days per week. Buyouts can be found for these unwilling to commute or relocate, successfully making the coverage an early step towards downsizing forward of deeper layoffs this fall.
“I consider that in-person collaboration is completely very important to constructing and strengthening our tradition,” Ellison instructed employees in a company-wide e-mail. He framed the transfer as fostering creativity, however for a lot of staff already weary from years of cost-cutting, it’s one other worrying sign.
Ellison has been candid about these selections. In his August technique memo, he promised to make Paramount “leaner, quicker, smarter and extra agile” with $2 billion in value cuts whereas redirecting sources to premium storytelling and streaming. “Expertise shouldn’t be—and by no means can be—a alternative for human creativity,” he wrote. “Reasonably, it serves as a strong multiplier.
The underside line: For Ellison, the subsequent few years will check whether or not a studio born within the silent movie period may be reborn as what he calls “the world’s subsequent technology media and leisure firm.”
