Forget Bob and Harvey, Joel and Ethan, Larry and Andy.
Hollywood’s new power siblings are the Ellisons -- David, 28, and Megan, 25.
The two children of Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison are funding major projects throughout the movie industry. They even occasionally throw their weight behind projects together such as with “True Grit.”
After a rocky start, David Ellison’s Skydance Productions is co-financing movies at Paramount, including “Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol” and “World War Z,” from a $350 million fund.
But even more interesting is Ellison’s younger sister, who through her Annapurna Productions is working with directors like Spike Jonze and Kathryn Bigelow.
“She’s incredibly impressive,” producer Doug Wick told TheWrap. "She has that rare balance of having really great taste, real respect for people who are genuinely gifted, real appreciation, and then also having a really clear practical streak.”
Ellison funded Wick’s film, “The Wettest County in the World,” bought by the Weinstein Co. at Cannes this year. The film, directed by John Hillcoat, is based on Matt Bondurant’s novel. The screenplay is by Nick Cave and stars Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Gary Oldman and Guy Pearce.
Wick said that people who look at Megan Ellison as merely “young” or merely “money” are wrong.
She is funding Jonze's new project with Charlie Kaufman. The plot of the first collaboration between the filmmakers since “Adaptation” is being kept under wraps.
Annapurna is also financing for Columbia Pictures a thriller about the Navy SEALs who found and killed Osama bin Laden. The movie stars Joel Edgerton and is directed and produced by Bigelow and written by Mark Boal -- the “Hurt Locker” team. Budget figures were unavailable.
Also read: Megan Ellison's Annapurna to Finance Bigelow & Boal's Next
She's also producing Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master," a 1950s period piece about a charismatic intellectual who builds a faith-based movement in the United States -- and takes on a young drifter as his right-hand man.
She's executive producer on "Cogan's Trade," starring Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini, and written and directed by Andrew Dominik, who also wrote and directed "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford."
And her company outbid the likes of Lionsgate for the rights to make a "Terminator 5" earlier this year, paying an estimated $20 million for the rights.
But Ellisons are anything but flashy Hollywood players. They work below the radar and generally avoid interviews.
David’s Skydance Productions has made bigger bets, and paid the price.
His first project five years ago, “Flyboys,” was a flop. Ellison co-financed and starred as pilot Eddie Beagle in the MGM movie, which had a $60 million production budget and grossed $17.8
