NEW YORK – Megan Ellison, along with her brother David Ellison who heads up Skydance Prods. and has played an increasing role in the film industry, had a producer credit on True Grit.??
But the 25-year-old daughter of Oracle boss Larry Ellison has also shown broader Hollywood aspirations as of late.?? According to the New York Times, her Annapurna Pictures has over the past year been pouring what may soon be hundreds of millions of dollars into sophisticated dramas and adventure films that are Hollywood studios and their corporate parents may find too risky.?
At least six films set for release in the coming months got major backing from Ellison and her company, according to the Times. Those include The Master, a drama about a cult starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the untitled film about the Osama bin Laden killing written and produced by Mark Boal and directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
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??She is also developing a film about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange based on an article by departing New York Times executive editor Bill Keller. And earlier in the year, Ellison bought the rights to the Terminator franchise. The Times said her freewheeling spending has been more akin to the technology start-up world and highlighted that tech and other personalities from outside Hollywood, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, have often faced challenges in the film business.??
But the paper said she has major plans. “She has this grand vision; she wants to be the one-stop shop for filmmakers,” said Michael Benaroya, a member of a Seattle real estate family who has joined Ellison in financing two films – a thriller called Catch .44 and Prohibition-era crime drama The Wettest County in the World.??
Friends and business associates describe her as shy, but the Times said she reportedly once posted on MySpace a photo with the caption: “Drunk dialing Dad in Paris after 3 bottles of Dom.” ??Ellison declined interview requests, the Times said.
