Texas Courts David Ellison As the Paramount Relocation Race Heats Up

With the clock ticking on his own deadline to move Paramount out of California, CEO David Ellison has been making the rounds to state officials as he fields bids on relocation packages.

A sit-down with Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick last month was said to be on the books, per a public records request obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. In an Aug. 11 email to economic development officials, Red Sanders, chair of the Texas Media Production Alliance, said that Ellison met with Patrick about the move.

“This big Oct. 1 deadline was just dropped,” Sanders wrote, referring to the date when the so-called $7 million-per-day ticking fee starts accruing if a deal for Warner Bros. Discovery does not close. If the situation isn’t resolved by that point, Ellison has said he’ll move Paramount’s headquarters to another state regardless of the outcome of lawsuits from a dozen states led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Writers Guild of America.

The records disclosure didn’t detail the substance of any supposed talks, which could include offers of job-creation tax credits, workforce-training grants or property tax abatements, among other things.

Paramount declined to comment on the meeting, citing settlement negotiations.

When reports first surfaced that Paramount may leave California, the immediate reaction was skepticism. Critics dismissed the threat as a ploy to manufacture leverage in deal discussions. That made sense: California is the entertainment capital of the world; All the infrastructure is here, as is most of the talent and crew. Separately, the blowback in Hollywood would undoubtedly be distressing for Ellison as he looks for allies after antagonizing a good chunk of the industry through his behind-the-scenes maneuvering to build an entertainment and news monolith.

But potential brinksmanship aside, Paramount’s fate is genuinely in limbo. To Ellison, this is a make-or-break moment worthy of burning all of his cachet in Hollywood. And there’s at least some truth to competing states gauging his interest in moving, with Tennessee officials extending an invitation in July. Since then, he’s called a meeting with senior leadership at the Paramount lot in Melrose, where the company is the last legacy studio with a presence in Hollywood, to make it official: the studio had entered exploratory talks to relocate its corporate headquarters, perhaps to Texas, Georgia or Tennessee.

Indeed, Texas officials have been mobilizing on this front in a coordinated push to lure Paramount away from California. After Sanders messaged state economic development representatives about Ellison’s meeting with Patrick, he was told to meet with Texas Film Commission deputy director Ali Nichols, who didn’t respond to request for comments.

It wasn’t the first time they discussed the issue. Earlier in July, only days after THR reported that Tennessee had been courting Paramount, the TXMPA chair and owner of Red Productions asked to “gather up key stakeholders that could help pitch Texas in the most favorable way.” A meeting was convened the following Monday.

“I’m close with Mike Deluca who is the Co-CEO of Warner Bro’s Motion Pictures group and have shot him a text to see how much of this is just posturing due to California’s lawsuit to block the merger, or how serious they might be,” Sanders wrote. “He reports directly to Zaslav, so he certainly has sway. Plus he spends a third of his time in Fort Worth. :)”

In an interview with THR, Sanders says that Texas is one of the few states in contention to host Paramount that could reasonably support the studio’s operations. Before his meeting with Patrick, the Paramount CEO flew to Nashville to meet with Tennessee officials, though he came out of the meeting with the impression that the state didn’t have the infrastructure to support operations, Sanders claims.

“Then he flew to Austin and met with Dan here,” he adds.

When asked about discussions with Ellison, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development said it can’t comment on details of the talks but that the state “remains committed to working with companies across a wide range of industries that are exploring opportunities to invest and grow.”

Ellison and his family have deep ties to Tennessee, where he lived on and off for 11 years from 2014 to 2025 before selling his home in the state when Paramount’s bid to acquire Skydance closed. Oracle, led by Ellison’s father, also has plans to build a massive campus in Nashville. Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t a stranger to the Volunteer State either. The studio used to maintain a massive office complex in Knoxville stemming from the 2017 Scripps Network deal. It sold the property in 2023.

Still, it’ll likely come down to the relocation package if Paramount is serious about moving. Texas has emerged in recent years as one of the most aggressive states in the country in competing for corporate headquarters by offering generous economic development incentives. The Texas Enterprise Fund provides “deal-closing” grants when a Texas site is competing against an out-of-state locations. Since 2020, more than 100 companies have relocated to Texas, including Tesla, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Charles Schwab.

“Texas is the headquarters of headquarters,” Gov. Greg Abbott said when announcing John Paul Mitchell Systems’ move to the state in 2025. His office declined to comment for this story.

Amid a tit-for-tat battle to host Hollywood, Texas last year bolstered its film and TV incentive program that positions a Southern bloc of states as a premier destination for entertainment and media. For Ellison, the state’s proximity to other filming hubs could prove valuable.

The change in 2025 increased by $100 million the amount allotted to productions every two years. With the funding greenlit through 2035, the expansion will shower as much as $1.5 billion in subsidies to Hollywood over the next decade — an amount far short of what California offers but is still in the top ten among states. Unlike some other regions, the program doesn’t require extra money from the state or appropriations requests every few years. It’s funded through Texas’ insurance and franchise tax buckets. The vision is to position the state, whose main draw is likely lower costs, as a global center for media and entertainment

Another factor: Paramount Pictures and Sheridan last year partnered to expand their production footprint in Texas, though that was before Sheridan jumped ship to NBCUniversal. The plan, at least when it was announced last year, was for the 450,000-square-foot filming hub to be the home of shows in the Sheridan-verse, including Landman, Lioness and The Madison.

Some 1,200 miles west of Texas, the rank-and-file in Los Angeles are already grappling with a shortage of work stemming from historically low filming levels. Soundstages are emptier than ever before. Costume and VFX houses are closing. Paramount moving could be another devastating blow, with nearly 2,500 jobs in the region at risk, according to a June report from Los Angeles County. Over $2.7 billion in economic value and $1.2 billion in lost wages is at stake, said a follow-up report issued last month.

“This is not a bluff,” says a source familiar with Ellison’s C-suite meetings on the potential relocation. “This is survival.”