Illustration by Tael Gomes In the days before the Paramount-Skydance merger closed, headlines as to who was staying and who was going were flying fast and furious. One person who appeared to be held in high esteem by Skydance chief David Ellison was Ramsey Naito, head of Paramount Animation. It would have been understandable if Ellison opted to show Naito the door as he did with other top execs, considering she was closely aligned with former Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins (she had helped bring the successful Nickelodeon series PAW Patrol to the big screen). On Aug. 6, the night before the merger became official, an anonymously sourced news story indicated that Naito was safe, highlighting the success of 2023's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which grossed $182 million worldwide against a $30 million budget and propelled the brand to north of $1 billion in merchandising sales. Related Stories Movies Jon M. Chu Inks First-Look Deal With Paramount Movies Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Deflects Questions About Trump's Push for 'Rush Hour 4' But things quickly turned for Naito as the emboldened top executives installed by Ellison to run the studio began asserting their power. In a fall meeting with key leaders, including Paramount Pictures co-chairman Josh Greenstein, Naito was left feeling humiliated after she was told she had devalued the Turtles franchise. Sources say Naito later confronted Greenstein and others to object to the way they had spoken to her. The essence of their response? "Get over it." It was an echo of the feelings-don't-matter, no-coddling ethos that powers Silicon Valley, where Ellison was raised and watched his father, Larry Ellison, grow Oracle into one of the most valuable companies in the world (and make himself one of the richest people on the planet). Multiple sources say Ellison is building a more brash culture that's defiantly upending the circumspect, politically correct style that has defined Hollywood in the post-#MeToo, post-George Floyd eras. It's a studio reborn, where blunt feedback is the norm, canceled talent is welcome (cheaper on the dollar, and yearning to prove themselves) and no one is walking on eggshells. Sources close to the new regime deny that anyone ever spoke down to Naito, but acknowledge that they confronted the exec for declining to take responsibility for the fact that several animated films under her watch had gone over budget, including Smurfs, a bomb that lost about $80 million for the studio. In either case, sources say that Naito saw the writing on the wall and told friends she wasn't sure how long she'd last under the new management. On Oct. 29, she was among those let go in a massive round of layoffs. Naito could not be reached for comment. She was replaced recently by Jennifer Dodge, president of entertainment at Spin Master, the toy company behind PAW Patrol. From left: Josh Greenstein, Dana Goldberg, Jeff Shell, David Ellison, Josh Goldstine, Don Granger and Jennifer Dodge. Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images; Bryan Bedder/Getty Images; Getty Images; Frazer Harrison/Getty Images (2); Rich Polk/Getty Images; Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images Even before Ellison took over, there were signs that the studio was changing. Paramount was among the first to kill its DEI policies, and after the Ellison era began, it became the first to publicly push back against the growing anti-Israel sentiment in Hollywood. Ellison also has been willing to empower once-canceled male execs as well as those who are eager to assert their influence after being denied top jobs at other companies. "There is an arrogance [at the film studio] that has caught the town by the surprise," says one source who's in business with Paramount, careful to note that co-movie studio chairman and TV chief Dana Goldberg, a Skydance alum, and Paramount president Jeff Shell do not share this style. What some see as arrogance, others characterize as a much-needed shift, remaking a struggling studio that was deprived of resources for years. The execs inherited a slate where every movie this year lost money in its theatrical run until the October romantic sleeper hit Regretting You. (That list includes the Ellison-produced Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.) Says a source who knows many of Paramount's new power players: "They have either been in the studio system or adjacent to it and are now in a position they never thought they'd have again. It's really theirs to lose; they can either build something that works or doesn't." Sources who know Ellison, 42, say that he personally has never presented as a bully, but father Larry is a self-avowed über-alpha personality who has a multibillion-dollar stake in the Paramount purchase and is one of Donald Trump's closest tech-world confidants. Trump has publicly praised the Skydance-Paramount marriage and David Ellison, pointing to right-leaning changes at CBS News, and is reportedly also looking favorably upon Ellison's bid to gobble up Warner