The news sent most of the staff across both studios to look up home prices on Zillow in Nashville and Austin. Getty Images Call it a threat. Or merely some thoughtful talking points. That’s all just semantics.
But when word spread this week that David Ellison floated the idea of leaving California with Paramount (and possibly Warner Bros.) in tow, a swath of the 7,500 L.A.-based staffers of the two studios hit Zillow in search of the price per square foot on homes in Nashville and Austin.
One studio executive who would be impacted wasn’t exactly balking at the prospect of a Golden State exodus.
“I’ll go to Nashville right now,” the executive told us. “I do have a desire to get a gorgeous house and pay it off fast. Your fuel costs are lower. Your life improves dramatically.”
The legal showdown between Paramount and a dozen state Attorneys General led by California’s Rob Bonta has made the prospect of a combined Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery megastudio potentially moving out of California a reality.
The Paramount CEO reportedly held a meeting with top lieutenants that included studio chiefs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, streaming boss Cindy Holland and CBS boss George Cheeks during which he shared that the storied studio could relocate to Tennessee, Texas or Georgia if Bonta’s case wasn’t settled. Multiple reports framed the surprising state move as a threat.
But a source familiar with what occurred in the meeting told Page Six Hollywood exclusively: “It wasn’t an ultimatum. It wasn’t even a conversation that was intended to leave that room.” The insider told us, “It was a spirited conversation with David and his senior leadership that was basically a contingency plan.”
Ellison, who we are told is keen on staying in California, has already received an entreaty from Tennessee’s Deputy Governor to consider moving Paramount to the Volunteer State. Ellison has also had conversations with top Texas politicians including attorney general Ken Paxton (who is currently running for a Texas Senate seat) to discuss moving to the Lone Star State, Page Six Hollywood has learned.
And while a potential move by Paramount would be cataclysmic to California’s already beleaguered film and television industry those discussions aren’t exactly new. Long before Bonta’s lawsuit was filed in June, the elder Ellison — Oracle billionaire Larry, who has made no secret of his disdain for California — discussed moving Paramount out of the state with top aides and friends. The 81-year-old mogul created the road map back in 2020, when he moved his primary residence to Hawaii and shifted Oracle’s corporate base from Silicon Valley to Texas, where he owns a large corporate campus including 560,000 square feet of office space along Lady Bird Lake in Austin.
Multiple sources say that Paramount’s final destination would likely come down to Texas and Tennessee. Neither state levies a state income tax, unlike California, which takes up to 13.3% from its high earners. An executive with a $1 million annual salary would hold onto an extra $133,000 a year. As for that ever-important price per square foot stat, it’s $751 in LA vs. $342 in Nashville, and $353 in Austin.
Other studio staffers tell Page Six Hollywood that they would likely keep a home in Los Angeles, even if they had to uproot, thanks to all the extra cash in their wallet.
The case for Texas rests largely on the fact that both Oracle and Paramount already have sizable footprints in the Lone Star State. In addition to its Lady Bird Lake campus, Oracle has also partnered with OpenAI and SoftBank to create a massive artificial intelligence data center campus in Abilene, Tex., known as Stargate, which boasts over 1,000 acres and eight buildings. Paramount Television meanwhile keeps its own foothold in Texas where it leases several soundstages from Taylor Sheridan’s SGS Studios in Fort Worth.
But insiders say Nashville is more likely than Austin.
In 2024, Larry Ellison announced that Oracle was moving its world headquarters to Nashville and began building a 70-acre headquarters for the tech company there about two years ago. The younger Ellison has a personal connection to the city. He briefly lived there full time when his wife Sandra Lynn Modic used to perform as a country singer at various Nashville venues, including Ryman Auditorium, and kept a home there for more than a decade.
Paramount Skydance also owns Nashville-based Country Music Television, and is an investor in Tim McGraw’s Down Home Media, which is also headquartered in the city.
But the sweepstakes aren’t going to be cheap for vying states, and the elder Ellison is known to drive a hard bargain.
“[They] would have to get some huge assurances and incentives from those states to build something that big. [They] would need billions,” says one source who added, “And what happens to senior management? Do Dana, Cindy and Josh Greenstein all go?”
(One exec in the top tax bracket was comforted by the fact that there’s a Soho House in Nashville.)
High-end realtors in Los Angeles believe that little will change in the local market if the Ellisons pick up stakes. Nestseekers International power broker Dylan Eckardt, whose clients have included Kanye West and Justin Bieber, says the highest earners will continue to keep a foot in Los Angeles even if they spend most of the year somewhere else.
“I think the studios moving out is a smart decision because of how much money it costs here,” says Eckardt, who recently opened an outpost in Nashville. “But the market is still here. People come here for what it was. People wanrt to live in the past because that was when it was cool. It’s not like that anymore. It’s rental Ferraris and… dudes saying they’re developers when they’re really just contractors.”
“Selling Sunset” star Amanda Lynn believes the impact of a major studio (or two) relocating would be significant.
In a span of weeks, Paramount agreed to halt the merger until a court decision or until June 2027, asked for a November trial, and is now back with another attempt to blackmail the state into letting an illegal deal through. Paramount has lost the plot as it continues to lose…
“If Paramount and Warner Bros. were to meaningfully relocate, you would likely see a ripple effect through LA real estate, particularly in areas that have historically benefited from the concentration of entertainment executives and high-income professionals,” she says. “Ultimately, I think the biggest story is not simply ‘Hollywood leaves LA.’ It’s that the traditional geographic model of the entertainment industry is changing. Los Angeles will remain a major entertainment capital, but we may be moving toward a more distributed industry where New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Nashville and other markets each capture different pieces of the business.”
Paramount has not commented on the alleged high-level Ellison meeting with staff.
Meanwhile, Bonta said on a Politico panel on Tuesday that he’s willing to negotiate a settlement with Paramount — but the studio needs to come with structural remedies. “We will listen,” if they do, the AG said.
But Bonta pooh-poohed Ellison’s recent assertion that Paramount will guarantee the release of 30 films a year under the combined entity with WBD. “I don’t think so… That is an old stale promise,” Bonta quipped at the panel. “We have seen this movie before, this isn’t the first merger of studios in Hollywood.”
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