Paramount’s new head of international has dived deep into how David Ellison sold him the dream.
Kevin MacLellan told the Enders TMT Leaders Live Conference that his hire at the new Paramount-Skydance, which will soon incorporate Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), came at a time when the “frightened paralysis” of the film and TV industry was coming to an end.
MacLellan, who is Paramount’s President, International and Global Content Distribution, explained how he met with Ellison after some time out of the industry and spent “a fascinating hour” listening to a CEO who “understands how tech works, how humans use tech and how we would apply that to films and TV.”
“I left excited,” added MacLellan. “When I left [the industry before] we were in this frightened paralysis of not knowing what comes next as an industry. When I returned, it felt like it had moved from frightened paralysis to some sort of informed optimism.”
MacLellan said this “optimism” comes from better data “helping us make better decisions” along with improved windowing.
He said “we got scared and moved the window back” during Covid-19 but the world is now moving on.
“The industry is not trying to collapse into a single platform,” he added. “The future isn’t single windows, it is multiple windows at the right time for the right people. We need different revenue streams coming through and I think we are all beginning to realize that. Each one reaches a different audience in a different moment.”
MacLellan is an international TV and film vet who worked for a decade at NBCUniversal. He was speaking at the Enders conference after international chiefs from Netflix, WBD and Disney.