100 Days at Paradance: Warners, Trump & the Ellison Checkbook
Plus: A reader mailbag on the dearth of women directors; Elon demands employees let their likeness be used to train ‘adult’ AI
Welcome to the Jamboree, my weekly takes on the industry’s passing parade.
David Ellison has had control of Paramount for more than 100 days at this point, and now it’s time to assess and decode his plans for the company (something Variety attempted this week).
The first challenge is cutting through the sweeping rhetoric and overheated promises, which could have been made by any new studio owner at any moment in history, albeit with a bit of a tech gloss in this version.
Once you get past that, the mixed bag remains. Declarations that the Ellison family checkbook — which I’d love to see them throw around — has taken Hollywood by storm and holds the industry in awe seem pretty premature. If this is taking Hollywood by storm, then I guess it’s a storm in the same manner as Angelenos running indoors in terror at the first hint of a drizzle.
So let’s take a look at the specifics thus far, and see what it all adds up to, good, bad and shruggy.
Bidding on Warners. This isn’t just the most significant move of the new regime, but the biggest swing of anyone this year. Why, having taken one studio, they need another one, while they are still trying to get up to speed with the first, remains unclear — apart from invoking the all-powerful god “scale.” Rating: Disaster.
Volume. From Variety: “The mad dash his film chiefs are making to build their slate from its current eight annual releases to 15 by 2026, 17 by 2027, and 18 by 2028.” Rating: If it happens, terrific. This is the big upside of the whole deal and the cause for optimism.
Layoffs. Lots of them and continuing, in the face of big payouts for the transactions and the $150 million acquisition of Bari Weiss. Rating: This is, needless to say, awful.
Deals. Ellison has brought in Will Smith and the Duffer brothers of Stranger Things fame. Rating: I look forward to seeing what comes next from the Duffers. As for Will Smith, a decade-plus out from his box office heights with added profile-clouding controversy… okay.
Franchises. From Variety: “There has also been a focus on reinvigorating certain franchises.” This is literally a sentence that could be written about the first moves of any studio head at any moment ever. “Why haven’t we done a Goonies project in 40 years?! Why is Crocodile Dundee just sitting in the closet?!” is generally where everyone has to start. In this case, Days of Thunder and Star Trek are in the hot seat. Outlook on that: TBD. Rating: We’ll see what they come up with.
Taste and Sensibilities. From Variety: “Ellison personally courted A Complete Unknown’s James Mangold and is shelling out up to $100 million to produce High Side, a motocross thriller that will be the director’s next film with Timothée Chalamet.” Rating: Fine? If you’re taking a first glance here, it’s starting to look like this is the sports films and nostalgia studio. Which, if you want middle-of-the-road tentpoles, you got ’em.
Taste and Sensibilities, Continued. Taylor Sheridan’s Call of Duty and video games. Don’t forget those. Rating: Sheridan’s doing it on his way out the door, which definitely should inspire an auteur whose work in the past notably suffers from being spread too thin, to do his very, very best.
Also, re-upping Jon Stewart’s contract, which, along with standing by South Park, puts an asterisk in the story that this is just becoming Fox News, the studio. Although about that…
