David Ellison Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Apple is getting the original True Detective band back together.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Well all right, all right, all right! “True Detective” and “EDtv” buddies Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are reuniting on screen once again, this time for a new Apple TV+ comedy from creator David West Read (“The Big Door Prize”). And this time, McConaughey and Harrelson are actually playing versions of themselves. In Read’s untitled 10-episode half-hour comedy, McConaughey and Harrelson — along with their families — attempt to live together on McConaughey’s Texas ranch. And of course, those close confines puts this storied friendship to the test. In the logline, Apple TV+ calls the new show “a heartfelt odd couple love story revolving around the strange and beautiful bond between Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.”

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson will reunite in a new comedy at Apple TV+ with Emmy award winning David West Read attached to create and executive produce.The 10-episode half-hour series, which is currently untitled, centers on a “heartfelt odd couple love story revolving around the strange and beautiful bond” between McConaughey and Harrelson’s characters. Their friendship is tested, however, when the pair takes their bond to the next level by inviting their combined families to live together on McConaughey’s ranch in Texas.After most recently gracing screens a dynamic detective duo Martin Hart and Rustin Cohle in “True Detective” Season 1, which premiered in 2014, McConaughey and Harrelson will executive produce alongside Read in addition to starring in the comedy series.After first working together on satire flick “Edtv” in 1999, the pair also teamed up in 2008 comedy “Surfer, Dude” before eventually reuniting again for the anthology crime drama created by Nic Pizzolatto.Produced for Apple TV+ by Skydance Television, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Matt Thunell will serve as executive producers for Skydance Television with Bill Bost and Jeremy Plager.

The Ben Affleck-directed Nike film Air from Amazon Studios, Skydance Sports and Mandalay Pictures is set to close out the SXSW Film Festival in a surprise showing ahead of its global April 5th theatrical release, Deadline can confirm. The screening is expected to take place at Austin, TX’s Paramount Theatre at 6:30 p.m on March 18.

In its first win of the evening, Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick scooped the Oscar for Sound with the prize going to the team of Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor.

Best Picture “All Quiet on the Western Front” — Malte Grunert, producer “Avatar: The Way of Water” — James Cameron and Jon Landau, producers

Julia MacCary editor “Abbott Elementary” and “Top Gun: Maverick” received top honors at the 60th annual International Cinematographers Guild (ICG) Publicists Awards luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Friday. The awards honor individual publicists, unit still photographers and entertainment journalists who further publicity campaigns for film and TV. Variety’s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay and senior entertainment reporter Angelique Jackson each earned nominations from ICG. Quinta Brunson of “Abbott Elementary” received the TV showman of the year honor, and the producers of “Top Gun: Maverick” (Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, David Ellison and Christopher McQuarrie) received the honor on the film side, with Bruckheimer accepting on behalf of all four.

The 60th annual ICG Publicists Awards Luncheon is underway at the Beverly Hilton, and Deadline is posting the winners as they’re announced. Check out the list below. 

EXCLUSIVE: With their action-romcom Ghosted bowing next month, Skydance and director Dexter Fletcher already have found their next project as the studio has closed a deal with Dexter Fletcher to direct the upcoming feature project Fountain of Youth written by James Vanderbilt.

Julia MacCary editor Apple TV+ dropped the trailer for the upcoming rom-com turned thriller “Ghosted,” which stars Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. The trailer shows Evans’ character Cole certain that Sadie (de Armas) is not just “ghosting” him, or ignoring his texts, after one date. Convinced they are meant to be together, he travels to London in what he hopes to be a romantic gesture, only to discover Sadie is not the person he thought, and is actually part of the CIA. What ensues is a spy-thriller where “action speaks louder than words.” De Armas joins the film after her recent Oscar nomination for “Blonde.” Her credits also include “Deep Water,” “Blade Runner 2049” and “No Time to Die.” Evans has played Captain America in several Marvel Cinematic Universe films, as well as performed in “Before We Go,” “Gifted” and “Playing It Cool.” Evans and de Armas previously acted together in “Knives Out” and “The Gray Man.”

EXCLUSIVE: Sigourney Weaver has joined the cast of Apple Original Films and Skydance’s The Gorge starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. Scott Derrickson is on board to direct with Zach Dean penning the script, which he sold on spec to Skydance last year. In addition to starring, Teller will serve as executive producer on the film.

Talk to me, Goose.

follows a father and daughter who learn that they’ve each secretly been working as CIA operatives for years. Amid realizing their entire relationship has been a lie, they’re forced to team up as partners.

Tim Gray Senior Vice President With 20/20 hindsight, the mega-success of Paramount’s “Top Gun: Maverick” might seem inevitable, since it is a sequel to a familiar title, and it stars Tom Cruise. Of course nothing is a sure bet. And even with its popularity, there was no assurance Academy voters would embrace it. But the film earned $1.48 billion at the worldwide box office and scored Oscar noms for best picture, adapted screenplay, editing, sound, song (by Lady Gaga and BloodPop) and visual effects. The best picture nom recognizes four producers: Tom Cruise, David Ellison, Christopher McQuarrie and, after nearly 50 years in the industry, Jerry Bruckheimer, who is celebrating his first Oscar nomination.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Tom Cruise stole the show at the 95th Oscars luncheon, the annual gathering celebrating the nominees for the year’s Academy Awards. At the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the in-person event had opening remarks from Academy president Janet Yang. The roll call of this year’s 182 attendees was read by Devon Franklin, a member of the Board of Governors, who began with Jamie Lee Curtis and ended with Guillermo del Toro. Aside from Yang addressing the Will Smith controversy at the top of the event to the attendees (without saying his name), more than 200 guests gathered to celebrate the cinema’s achievements from 2022. Of them, 182 were official nominees for this year’s ceremony, the largest turnout in history. Some of the notable names missing were best actress nominees Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) and Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”), supporting actor Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), producer James Cameron (“Avatar: The Way of Water”) and original song contenders Rihanna (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”), Lady Gaga (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and David Byrne (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”).

EXCLUSIVE: Peter Farrelly is looking to get back in to the genre that helped launch his career as sources tell Deadline the Oscar-winner is partnering with Skydance on the new action-comedy Balls Up that he will direct from a script by Deadpool scribes Paul Wernick & Rhett Reese.

Top Gun: Maverick scored six Oscar nominations this morning including best picture, along with adapted screenplay by Ehren Kruger & Eric Warren Singer, sound, film editing, visual effects and original song for the Lady Gaga tune Hold My Hand. The film’s emergence as a best picture threat might have seemed an impossible mission, in that a summer movie that grosses nearly $1.5 billion worldwide moves popcorn, not Oscar voters. This Paramount Pictures film has proven to be the exception and one big reason is this: if Tom Cruise didn’t rescue the theatrical box office business following the Covid pandemic, he certainly pulled it out of a nosedive. While Cruise did not get nominated for best actor, he is squarely in the mix as producer, alongside first time Oscar nominee and hitmaking stalwart Jerry Bruckheimer, Christopher McQuarrie (a double nominee counting the adapted screenplay category) and Skydance principal David Ellison.

Dexter Fletcher was at the Critics Choice Awards and dropped a hint that his latest film Ghosted could be dropping in April.

EXCLUSIVE: Siobhan Murphy (Murdoch Mysteries) is set to recur in the Amazon Original series Cross. She will star opposite Aldis Hodge, who brings to life the titular Alex Cross.

EXCLUSIVE: A slew have just boarded Paramount’s upcoming Transformers: Rise of the Beasts including Peter Dinklage (as the voice of Scourge), Liza Koshy (as the voice of Arcee), John DiMaggio (as the voice of Stratosphere), David Sobolov (as Rhinox/Battletrap), Michaela Jaé Rodriguez (as Nightbird), Cristo Fernández (as Wheeljack), and Tobe Nwigwe (as Reek).

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon’s Alex Cross series has found its opening director.

EXCLUSIVE: Maggie Q, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby and Ciaran Hinds have rounded out the cast of Apple Original Films and Skydance Media’s action comedy The Family Plan starring Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan. Simon Cellan Jones, who recently collaborated with Wahlberg on Arthur the King, will direct.

The NFL and its NFL Films subsidiary have formed a joint venture with Skydance Sports to create a multi-sport production studio.

There’s a change at the top of Skydance Television.

America’s Cup and Skydance Sports are exclusively partnering for an “all-access, behind-the-scenes” documentary series on the next America’s Cup race, and they’ve enlisted some Oscar-winning talent to help steer the craft.

EXCLUSIVE: Michelle Monaghan is set to co-star opposite Mark Wahlberg in Apple Original Films and Skydance Media’s action comedy The Family Plan. Simon Cellan Jones, who recently collaborated with Wahlberg on Arthur the King, will direct.

David Ellison’s Skydance has secured a $400 million investment to expand its operations, particularly its animation, sports and interactive ambitions, pushing the company’s valuation above $4 billion. The investment came from investment firm KKR and joined by the Ellison Family (who remain the company’s majority shareholders), as well as other existing backers supporting the “Top Gun: Maverick” studio.

Skydance Media said today it’s completed a $400 million strategic investment round led by KKR, a first-time investor, and joined by the Ellison family, who remain majority shareholders. Existing investors RedBird Capital Partners and Tencent also participated in the fundraise, which values Skydance at over $4 billion.

EXCLUSIVE: In what is turning into one of the more hotter projects in town, Skydance’s The Gorge starring Miles Teller, looks to have found its distributor and Teller’s co-star. Sources tell Deadline, Apple Original Films have come on to the pic with SAG Award-winner Anya Taylor-Joy set to star alongside Miles Teller in the genre-bending love story. Scott Derrickson is on board to direct with Zach Dean penning the script, which he sold on spec to Skydance last year. In addition to starring, Teller will serve as executive producer on the film.

Michaela Zee editor The third season of Tom Clancy’s political action thriller series “Jack Ryan” is set to premiere on Prime Video Dec. 21. Starring John Krasinski as Jack Ryan, the eight-episode season follows Ryan on the run after being implicated in a larger conspiracy. While trying to stay alive as the CIA and an international rogue faction hunt him down, Ryan must also prevent a massive global conflict. Wendell Pierce and Michael Kelly return for the third season, with new series regulars Nina Hoss and Betty Gabriel joining the cast. “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” is co-produced by Amazon Studios, Paramount Television Studios and Skydance Television. The series is executive produced by Andrew Form, Allyson Seeger, Krasinski, Vaun Wilmott, Brad Fuller and Michael Bay. Tom Clancy and Skydance Television’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Bill Bost serve as executive producers on the third season, along with Mace Neufeld and Carlton Cuse.