David Ellison slots Israeli Ynon Kreiz into executive role at merged Paramount-Warner studios

JTA – Jewish entertainment mogul David Ellison has appointed an Israeli businessman to help lead operations at the new company being created by his controversial merger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery. The move came days after a settlement cleared the way for the combined mega-studio’s formation. 

Ynon Kreiz, the Israeli-American former chief executive of Mattel, is joining the company as Ellison’s co-chief executive. The merged entity will be known simply as Skydance, the name of Ellison’s production company, which previously merged with Paramount, Ellison announced on Friday. 

“We have big goals for Skydance, and we intend to pursue them with passion, imagination, and a willingness to take smart risks,” Ellison announced in his inaugural post on the social network X. 

The mogul’s entertainment and media ambitions have attracted considerable negative attention over the past few years, attention that, in some instances, has been directed at his pro-Israel beliefs and connections as the entertainment industry writ large has also weathered growing accusations of anti-Jewish bias. 

Most recently, the actor Mark Ruffalo has drawn accusations of antisemitism – and some support – for suggesting that Ellison’s planned $110 billion (R1.8 trillion) merger would be a boon to Israel’s “apartheid system of oppression” via Oracle, the tech surveillance company owned by Ellison’s father, Larry, that does business in Israel. 

Paramount under Ellison’s leadership has long shown signs of pro-Israel leanings. Last year the company was the only major American studio to issue a public rebuke of a petition to boycott Israeli film institutions, circulated by many big-name actors, while distributing multiple documentaries about Israelis in the shadow of the 7 October Hamas attacks. Ellison also attracted scrutiny for appointing Bari Weiss, the Jewish and pro-Israel media innovator and pundit, as editor in chief of CBS News. 

Weiss’s tenure at CBS has been marked by controversy, with mass walkouts of top talent and a ratings nosedive. Initial industry speculation that Ellison would ask her also to take the reins at Warner-owned CNN has been tamped down in recent days, with The Wall Street Journal and other outlets now reporting that Ellison has asked the news network’s chief executive, Mark Thompson, to stay put for at least the next year. 

Kreiz, the former Mattel chief executive behind the smash-hit Barbie movie, has been known to support pro-Israel causes as well. In 2023, he attended a screening of footage of the 7 October Hamas attacks that was organised by Israeli actress Gal Gadot at Los Angeles’s Museum of Tolerance. Outside, brawls broke out between pro- and anti-Israel demonstrators.