David Ellison's $350 Million Paramount Deal
Filed under: Wealth
How does a 27-year-old actor raise $350 million for a movie-making deal with Paramount Studios? It helps when your father is a billionaire. David Ellison, the son of Oracle's Larry Ellison raised the money, $150 million in equity and a four-year, $200-million revolving credit facility led by JPMorgan Chase, so that he can ramp up production at his movie decoration: underline;">company Skydance Productions, according to the LA Times. Ellison's father has an estimated net worth of $28 billion and did chip in part of the equity along with other investors. The funds will enable the younger Ellison to crank out four to six movies a year. Skydance will produce both big-budget action, adventure and science fiction as well as less expensive comedies and genre pictures. The LA Times reports that Ellison had been trying to raise money since last year, when he first signed a four-year co-financing, production and distribution agreement with Paramount. The deal means that Skydance will get the option to co-finance and co-produce the movies that Paramount plans to make and Paramount can co-finance and distribute a number of movies that Skydance makes.
The LA Times article reports that Paramount needed the cash infusion. The studio failed to raise its own $450 million in 2009 and has been making movies with the help of financing partners including Spyglass Entertainment to put out its films. Skydance will co-finance "Mission: Impossible 4" with Tom Cruise, "True Grit" starring Matt Damon and a new movie with Chris Pine to reboot the Jack Ryan series of movies based on Tom Clancy's thrillers. Ryan has been played by Ben Affleck, Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin in the past.
Ellison is a USC Film School graduate who started off as an actor. He is also a stunt pilot who has his offices at the Santa Monica airport and named his company after his love of flying. In 2006 he had his first big-screen role in the World War I drama "Flyboys" a movie that he starred in with James Franco and co-financed with MGM. David Ellison, his father and a group of filmmakers and investors spent around $60 million of their own money to make and market the film. It had a total box office gross of $17,770,614.
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