The Kid Takes Over: David Ellison Becomes a Hollywood Colossus

The age of the Hollywood mogul was supposed to be over.Movies are dead, haven’t you heard? Even the grandest studio — Warner Bros.

— had started to resemble a relic of a powerful past.Then came a “kid.”David Ellison, the son of the Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, was 23 when he arrived in the movie capital in 2006.Hollywood insiders laughed behind his back.

He was dumb money to be fleeced, another star-struck rich guy with a checkbook.A 2015 GQ profile ran with the headline “The Kid Pays for the Picture.”On Monday, after a remarkable, almost inconceivable run of dealmaking and brinkmanship, Mr.

Ellison — all of 43 years old — stood on the verge of adding Warner Bros.Discovery to his Paramount Skydance, giving him control of two businesses that helped invent the movie and television industries.

A settlement with 12 states cleared the antitrust lawsuit that was the remaining obstacle to the $111 billion takeover.Mr.Ellison was already an unusual figure in modern Hollywood — a controlling owner who was also chief executive and a hands-on movie and television producer.

Adding Warner Bros.Discovery will expand his power to a scale without precedent, spanning a wider range of media than the empires of classic moguls like Jack Warner and Louis B.

Mayer.Even Bob Iger, for all his regal command as Disney’s chief executive over the decades, never combined all those roles.“David’s about to become the Hollywood equivalent of Superman, Caesar and Midas combined,” Joseph M.Singer, a veteran film financier and former studio executive, said in an email.

“He won’t just be sitting at the table.He’ll have extraordinary influence over who gets a seat.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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