Biography

David Ellison is Chief Executive Officer of Skydance Media, the diversified media company he founded in 2010 to create elevated, event-level entertainment for global audiences. As CEO, he sets and executes the strategic vision for the company across all of its divisions: feature film, television, interactive, animation and new media. David currently oversees Skydance's upcoming film slate including Top Gun: Maverick, The Tomorrow War, Snake Eyes, The Adam Project and the upcoming seventh and eighth installments of the Mission: Impossible series. Under his leadership, Skydance has produced a number of blockbuster and critically acclaimed films including Tom Clancy's Without Remorse, The Old Guard, 6 Underground, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Annihilation, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond, the Jack Reacher films and the Academy Award-nominated True Grit. In 2013, David launched Skydance Television, which boasts a diverse slate of series including three Emmy-nominated series: Grace and Frankie and Altered Carbon on Netflix and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan on Amazon. The slate also includes Condor on EPIX, Foundation on Apple TV+ and Reacher on Amazon. In 2016, David formed Skydance Interactive, a dedicated subsidiary that creates and owns original virtual reality games and licensing. The studio's library includes the critically acclaimed VR survival-horror game The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners and the mech-shooter Archangel: Hellfire. David launched an animation division at Skydance in 2017, with the purpose of producing a bold and original slate of high-end animated feature films and television series. The division's animated feature film slate includes Luck and Spellbound. In 2020, David formed Skydance Animation Madrid which expanded the creative capability, scale and leverage of the studio. In 2018, David announced that Skydance had entered into a partnership with Tencent Holdings Limited, a leading provider of Internet value added services in China. In 2020, he announced the formation of strategic partnerships with Redbird Capital and CJ E&M, culminating in a $275 million equity capital expansion that saw Skydance's valuation increasing to $2.3 billion. This partnership with CJ E&M expanded Skydance's global television business, providing the company a strong foothold in South Korea's entertainment market and access to CJ E&M's expansive library of wildly popular entertainment. David is an accomplished pilot and a lifelong film enthusiast. He attended the School of Cinematic Arts at USC and is a member of the Producers Guild of America as well as the Television Academy. He resides in Southern California with his wife, musician Sandra Lynn.
- IMDb mini biography by: Skydance Media official site