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The Hollywood Hero of the Year Is…

David Ellison arrived in Hollywood like a wannabe Bond villain: a young, icy-blue-eyed aerobatic pilot, armed with Larry’s billions. More than 15 years later, however, with a nine-figure payday from Top Gun: Maverick, his string of studio and streamer successes could be a harbinger for how Hollywood survives a new era of downsizing and consolidation.

david Ellison
To say David Ellison was born on third base is an insult to baseball, but unlike so many in Hollywood these days, he seems to actually care about the audience, and what they might want to watch in their free time. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Matthew Belloni
December 30, 2022

It’d be pretty easy to scan the Hollywood headlines of 2022, hone in on the biggest success story in the most challenged area of the business, and say, OK, so who’s the one person who made THAT happen? The short answer, of course, is that Tom Cruise made Top Gun: Maverick happen. But the guy who got the ball rolling more than a decade ago—before Cruise, before producer Jerry Bruckheimer, way before those Paramount Global executives who wanted to dump the movie on a streamer, causing Cruise to put his foot down and set it up to gross $1.5 billion worldwide, the biggest 2022 release so far—was actually David Ellison. And it’s one of a few pretty significant and instructive success stories for Ellison this year.