From box office bomb to media powerhouse: Skydance’s 20-year rise

NEW YORK (AP) — In its debut film, Skydance Productions released a special effects-laden World War I drama about fighter pilots with a starring role for an unknown actor, the company’s founder, David Ellison.

It was a box office bomb.

Twenty years later, in a twist fit for Hollywood itself, the tiny studio once brushed off as a billionaire scion’s vanity project is poised to be an entertainment behemoth. With that once-unknown actor at its helm and a merger with Paramount already under its belt, Skydance is now on the cusp of another takeover that once seemed unthinkable, this time of storied giant Warner Bros. Discovery.

“It’s only a surprise to those who haven’t been paying attention to the long game,” says Walter Nicoletti, founder of the film production company Voce Spettacolo, noting Skydance’s focus on financing hit movies and accumulating assets while partnering with some of the biggest companies in the business. “This is a sort of a silent takeover. Skydance didn’t start as a predator. It started as an essential partner.”

When Ellison, the son of tech giant Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, launched Skydance as a 23-year-old in 2006, the company registered little more than a blip in an industry where he was just another rich newcomer trying to gain a foothold in the warmth of Hollywood’s bright lights.

“Flyboys,” the war story it chose as its inaugural feature, did little to raise its profile.

“Cloyingly formulaic,” jeered The Seattle Times. An “inflated wannabe epic,” chimed in The Washington Post. “It’s hard not to giggle,” concluded The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The celebrated critic Richard Roeper echoed the panning reviews of his brethren and the lackluster response of audiences in questioning what the movie’s makers were thinking.

“Why make such a corny and incredibly predictable film?” he wrote.

But Ellison plodded on. As the years ticked by, more flops came but he slowly notched successes too. He partnered with some of the biggest names in the business, including Paramount, Netflix and Apple, and unleashed a string of hits that brought in hundreds of millions at the box office. He lured both talent and streams of financing. He even released the rare film to surpass the $1 billion mark, the 2022 blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick,” with his studio’s most reliable star, Tom Cruise.

Jason Squire, a former studio executive, emeritus professor at the University of Southern California, and host of “The Movie Business Podcast,” is no fan of the deal that has Skydance poised to take over Warner Bros., seeing the consolidation as reducing competition and hurting the industry. But he nonetheless marvels at how Ellison went from being “not high on the radar” in Hollywood to entertainment’s pinnacle.

“One of the traditions of entering the movie business is serious wealth, or access to serious wealth. But once you get a foothold, you have to demonstrate that wealth — by buying things, acquiring projects,” Squire says. “They became a player.”

Money alone didn’t assure Ellison’s success, Squire says, but it sure helped.

“He became a member at the table when these partnerships and the infusion of dollars really set him up on a really strong trajectory,” he says. “It’s quite amazing.”

In time, the failure of “Flyboys” was not what anyone thought of about Skydance. While there have been a few disappointments, including its reboot of the “Terminator” franchise, a string of “Mission: Impossible” flicks continually put Cruise in the limelight and audiences in theater seats. Hits like “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix gave it an entry to streaming television.

A run-up of successes had rumors swirling what giant might gobble Skydance up.

But in the end, Skydance did the gobbling.

After years of partnering with Paramount, the two companies merged last year, and in the months since, Ellison went on a relentless spending spree, announcing agreements on everything from streaming rights for Ultimate Fighting Championship to a deal with the creators of “Stranger Things,” who were lured from Netflix.

Meantime, while the much larger Netflix once seemed a shoo-in to acquire Warner Bros., Ellison’s Skydance was unrelenting in its counterproposal. On Thursday, it emerged the winner. Netflix walked away from its offer, leaving regulators as Skydance’s only potential foil.

“This was absolutely a meteoric rise. Two decades from its formation to its current position to become one of the most powerful media companies in the world is nothing less than incredible,” says Tre Lovell, a Los Angeles media law and entertainment attorney. “What Skydance has done over the past two decades has not been accomplished by any other media company in history.”

Skydance’s merger with Paramount delivered MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and a host of other channels, including its flagship CBS, where the change in power has brought turmoil to its news division. If the Warner deal is finalized, Ellison will preside over a sprawling empire that would include HBO, HGTV, the Food Network, and another vast expansion into news with CNN, a move that has some of its employees worried about interference from a family seen as an ally of President Donald Trump.

It also delivers to Paramount, which has sputtered recently at the box office, a studio coming off a banner year. Warner Bros. collected 30 Oscar nominations compared with Paramount’s zero, and accounted for 21% of the domestic box office in 2025. Paramount’s market share was just 6%.

All of it now could be Ellison’s. What a difference 20 years makes.

The failure of “Flyboys” had Ellison so depressed, he once said, that he suffered atrial fibrillation that required hospitalization. But for someone from a family so rich that his father owns most of a Hawaiian island, and with a look that GQ described as “the golden glow of the genetically sparkling,” his reversal of fortunes may be unsurprising. In this redemption story, Ellison may be straight out of central casting.

Ellison has scored his biggest big-screen wins with familiar stories from popular franchises like “Transformers,” “Scream,” “Sonic the Hedgehog,” and “Paw Patrol.” His own narrative, emerging the unlikely victor, may strike an equally familiar tone.

“Hollywood has seen David-versus-Goliath moments before,” says Vikrant Mathur, co-founder of the streaming company Future Today.

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Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky