David Ellison’s AI Plan: Make a Movie 20 Times. But First…

Skydance’s Paramount-Warners combo may be Hollywood’s most aggressive attempt yet to turn AI into a real-world studio operating system, a fantasy/dystopia (depending on your world view) of automation. And David Ellison’s own vision — in his own words — goes well beyond using the tech to speed up spreadsheets or automate HR.

Earlier this year, speaking at a finance conference in March with one of his own investors and board members, RedBird’s Gerry Cardinale, Ellison suggested that AI could allow Paramount to make multiple versions of a movie, test them with audiences and learn quickly what works. “If you can make the movie 15 times, 20 times, get that audience feedback, you’re going to be able to tell better stories that entertain your audience,” he said.

Of course, who can blame him for being an AI evangelist? His dad is literally betting it all on the tech, pouring Oracle’s billions into the data centers that power it, and that same fortune is what’s propping up Skydance’s balance sheet. And with the boulder of $80 billion in debt that Wall Street absolutely hates rolling downhill toward Skydance’s bottom line every second of every day, any tool that can help free up Sisyphus… well, bring on the “efficiencies.”

A Skydance rep declined to comment.

So AI-as-tastemaker is the radical end state of a 21st century studio that every union and director will oppose. The transformation inside the company, though, likely starts somewhere far less cinematic — but with equal impact on its workers.