| Megan Ellison | |
|---|---|
 Ellison at the 86th Academy Awards Nominee Luncheon | |
| 4 Nominations | |
| Role | Producer |
| Born | January 31, 1986 |
| Santa Clara, California, USA | |
Megan Ellison is an American film producer and founder of Annapurna Pictures. She is the daughter of billionaire Oracle Corporation CEO Larry Ellison and Barbara Boothe. Her brother is film producer David Ellison. She started out in the film business in 2006 when she contacted Katherine Brooks about investing in the filmmaker's next movie. The duo made plans for Waking Madison. Ellison financed the film that was reported to have a budget of $2 million. Ellison provided some financing for more movies in 2008 and 2009. The first was Main Street (2010). It received little attention at film festivals and failed to gain general release. Passion Play (2010) got a release but fared poorly at the box office despite a well-known cast of popular actors. However, her investment in the Coen brothers western remake True Grit (2010) paid off as that movie found major commercial and critical success when released at the end of 2010. After that, Ellison received access to much larger sums of money from her father for the production of more movies and partnered with Michael Benaroya. She has since founded Annapurna Pictures, a company that plans to take a so-called "Silicon Valley" approach to filmmaking by investing in original, daring movies made by prestigious directors and screenwriters. Believing that risk-averse Hollywood studios have largely abandoned sophisticated dramas, period pieces, and auteur cinema, Annapurna Productions has released Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012).
Nominations[]
- 85th Academy Awards, 2012
- Best Picture — Zero Dark Thirty (shared with Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal)
- 86th Academy Awards, 2013
- Best Picture — American Hustle (shared with Charles Roven, Richard Suckle and Jonathan Gordon)
- Best Picture — Her (shared with Spike Jonze and Vincent Landay)
- 90th Academy Awards, 2017
- Best Picture — Phantom Thread (shared with JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi)