Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Lays Off 30 Staffers

Megan Ellison’s production banner Annapurna is reducing its head count by 30 staffers. “The reduction reflects business conditions. Annapurna is an independent entertainment and media company operating in shifting market conditions, and is realigning to meet the changing landscape,” a spokesperson stated to The Hollywood Reporter. Of late, the banner has backed projects including Olivia Wilde’s drama The Invite and Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters on the feature side while forging ahead on interactive entertainment like music-themed Mixtape, survival horror title The Lost Wild and Silent Hill entry Townfall. Megan Ellison, the daughter of Oracle mogul Larry Ellison (current net worth: around $200 billion), is the sibling of David Ellison, Paramount’s CEO and would-be owner of the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery empire. Megan had founded Annapurna in 2011 with a focus on the type of prestige dramas (think: Spike Jonze’s Her and David O. Russell’s American Hustle) that played well during fall festival season, and became the toast of the town in the mid-2010s thanks to the mogul’s largesse and willingness to fund riskier, auteur-driven bets. At the same time as Megan was betting on art dramas, her brother David was leaning in to back IP-driven tentpoles, including the Terminator franchise, Mission: Impossible sequels, Tom Clancy fare and genre films like World War Z through his Skydance Media (which formally merged with Paramount last August). Both Ellison siblings had been funded, in part, by their father Larry’s billions as they broke into Hollywood with different pathways. In recent years, the West Hollywood-based Annapurna had pulled back from financing the type of Zero Dark Thirty-style bets that it had built its name on, offloading titles like 2019’s Bombshell and Hustlers during a pivot and what was described at the time as a cash crunch at the firm. In the pandemic era, Ellison’s label dove further into video games and interactive entertainment, as well as nabbing an Oscar nomination with its salvaged animated feature film Nimona in 2023. But it was early this year that gave new signs that features were once again a focus, given Megan’s involvement in nabbing The Invite at Sundance in a major festival sale. Veteran execs Chelsea Barnard and Matthew Budman also rejoined the company as co-heads of film. Speculation in recent months has also centered on Annapurna’s future as a label outside of a merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery run by her brother, or whether any sort of partnership or affiliation may be a possibility. More to come.