David Ellison Purchase Could Offer Star Trek A Soft Landing
Skydance chief has history with the franchise
Rumors and reports about a potential sale of the financially strapped Paramount Global are coming much faster now, with the purchase of the studio — including the Star Trek franchise — to David Ellison and his Skydance Media.
Nothing yet is signed — or even certain — but a potential sale to Skydance is getting a lot of ink, both in the mainstream financial and, naturally, the Star Trek fan, press.
We fans clearly want to see Star Trek go to a good home, one which would seek to realize all of its value and potential — as opposed to a buyer of Paramount who for whatever reason, would see it as an afterthought.
And it can't be stressed enough just how tentative and uncertain things appear at the moment.
However, David Ellison and Skydance Media could be that good home.
Ellison — the son of the billionaire founder of the Oracle software company — founded his film and TV studio in 2010.
And since then, Ellison has worked with Star Trek.
He was credited as an executive producer on the last of the JJ Abrams reboot movies, 2016’s Star Trek: Beyond.
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Further Ellison also has a connection to Alex Kurtzman, who is currently the executive in charge of Star Trek TV for Paramount. Back in 2011, Kurtzman held talks with Skydance to merge the production company he held along with his former partner Roberto Orci.
This doesn't indicate any deep insights, of course. But these appear, at least, to be hopeful tea leaves.
Deadline reported that Ellison is “mainly interested in the studio but Paramount won’t sell its crown jewel alone.”
It's also been reported that Ellison might require additional financing from his wealthy father if the deal were to happen.
Of course, the other issue of interest to fans would be where Star Trek could be found into the future.
The fate of the studio’s own Paramount Plus streaming service is unclear regardless of who might ultimately acquire the studio.
So, of course, we could find Star Trek continuing on Paramount Plus uninterrupted. Or Paramount’s streamer could be shut down, in which we could begin to find the distribution of various components of the franchise — the movies and various series — much more dispersed.
In which case, finding Star Trek: Prodigy over on Netflix as fans do now, would be only a small glimpse of what the future might look like.
Meanwhile, the current CEO of Paramount Global urged staffers at the entertainment conglomerate to continue to focus on their 2024 business goals, and avoid the distractions of the headlines.
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