SANTA MONICA, Calif. — David Ellison, the 32-year-old son of Larry Ellison, the billionaire Oracle founder, sat in a temporary office here in early June and offered his take on Hollywood — lessons learned from five years of producing big-budget movies like his “Terminator Genisys,” which was then just a few weeks from opening.  “Good isn’t good enough,” he said, speaking in his matter-of-fact way. “Movies have to be great. If you fall short of that, it is incredibly challenging.”  “Terminator Genisys” fell a bit short. It arrived on Wednesday to poor reviews, boding ill for Mr. Ellison in more ways than one: His company, Skydance Media, already has two sequels and a TV spinoff in the pipeline. “Terminator Genisys” took in about $44.2 million in North America over its first five days, a soft result for a heavily marketed movie released over a holiday that cost at least $155 million to make.  Mr. Ellison, an accomplished aerobatics pilot, will do what well-funded movie producers (and stunt fliers) do when thrown for unexpected loops: shake it off, come back around. His next movie, “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation,” arrives on July 31. But “Terminator Genisys” may well end up as another lesson for Mr. Ellison: Paying for movies is one thing. Steering them creatively is another.  Until now, Mr. Ellison has mostly taken the safe approach to Hollywood, investing in blockbuster bait like “Star Trek Into Darkness” and leaving the hard creative decisions to the pros. In sharp contrast, his sister, Megan Ellison, jumped into the deep end by investing in riskier art films, serving in a creative capacity on critical darlings like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Her” — and sometimes doing a belly flop, as happened with “The Master” in 2012.  But “Terminator Genisys” brought a major shift for Mr. Ellison.  For the first time since arriving in the movie capital a decade ago, first to pursue acting and then forming Skydance, he served as a full-fledged producer on a film (as opposed to an “executive producer,” which typically means writing a check). He worked with writers to lay out the ambitious “Terminator Genisys” story line, helped choose the director and assisted in the development of complex visual effects.  “It would be hard to enumerate the vast number of things that David brought to the movie,” said Dana Goldberg, Skydance’s chief creative officer. She noted that Mr. Ellison also has a full producer credit on “Rogue Nation.”  After the 2008 financial crisis, which made it harder for film companies to obtain access to capital, wealthy outsiders took on renewed importance. Stepping in to keep the movie assembly lines moving were investors with trust funds, like the Ellisons; Gigi Pritzker, the Hyatt heiress; and Tyler Thompson, whose family has oil and gas interests.  Mr. Ellison, who is married to Sandra Lynn, a country singer, has not quite escaped the typecasting of “dumb money,” Hollywood speak for an affluent outsider bitten by the movie bug. “The Kid Pays for the Picture” was the headline of a recent GQ profile, which reported that he drives a $233,500 Ferrari.  But some serious movie people have come to take Mr. Ellison very seriously. “He has really good story ideas, he is very driven and he understands the business side, the deals, almost to the degree a lawyer might,” said Jerry Bruckheimer, who is working with Mr. Ellison on a “Top Gun” sequel.  Mr. Ellison has a clear business goal.  “We want to be Marvel,” he said resolutely, referring to the Disney-owned studio that has put together a web of interlocking and wildly successful movies, like the “Iron Man” franchise. “Yes, we know that’s a lofty ambition,” he added.  Very lofty. Unlike Marvel, Skydance does not have access to endless amounts of comic book source material. But Mr. Ellison is charging forth. “My dad is one of the most driven people on the planet,” he said, explaining determination as a family trait.  Skydance sprouted a television division 18 months ago and has already landed two series in “Grace and Frankie” and “Manhattan.” Ms. Goldberg said the company aims to have seven shows on the air by 2018.  In partnership with Paramount Pictures, which has a long-term co-financing and co-producing deal with Mr. Ellison, Skydance is working on sequels to “World War Z,” “Star Trek Into Darkness” and “Jack Reacher,” among others. “On a creative level, we certainly have come to rely on David,” said Brad Grey, Paramount’s chief executive.  Skydance also has original movies in the works, including “Geostorm,” about a race into space to prevent a satellite-spawned weather catastrophe. “We want to make movies that massive audiences want to go see,” Mr. Ellison said.  “Terminator Genisys” could still meet that mass threshold. The movie performed better overseas, taking in an estimated $85.5 million in partial release, according to Paramount. Rob Moore, Paramount’s vice chairman, said on Sunday that the film could ultimately take in $350 million to $400 million overseas.  “We understand that ‘Terminator’ is a worldwide franchise,” Mr. Ellison said in an email on Sunday, “and we are hopeful that the fans are still as passionate about it as we are.”  Why was Mr. Ellison so insistent on moving forward with two sequels and a television spinoff before “Terminator Genisys” even opened? He explained the strategy by noting that successful series like “The Lord of the Rings” were mapped out all at once. “It’s so you don’t back yourself into a corner like we’ve seen some franchises do in the past,” he said.  His personal enthusiasm for the first two “Terminator” movies, released in 1984 and 1991, also seems to have been a factor.  “I remember going to see ‘Terminator 2’ with my mom when I was 8 years old, which is way too young to be seeing that movie,” Mr. Ellison said, becoming animated. “But to let you know how important this movie was in my household, my mom actually worked out to get into the same shape as Linda Hamilton was.”  Mr. Ellison’s mother is Barbara Boothe. He grew up with her in Silicon Valley (his parents divorced when he was a toddler) and started flying planes as a teenager. He studied cinema at the University of Southern California, but he left before graduating to act in a movie called “Flyboys,” which flopped in 2006.  He then formed Skydance, putting money into films like “True Grit” and “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.” In 2011, Mr. Ellison and his sister bought the “Terminator” rights. She ultimately decided not to invest in “Terminator Genisys,” so Mr. Ellison pitched the project to Paramount in a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Grey.  “He was very passionate about this movie,” Mr. Grey said. “By the end of the meeting, I was happy to, in essence, bet on him.”  Whatever happens with his “Terminator” plans, Mr. Ellison made it clear that he enjoys the high-risk nature of Hollywood, in part because it makes his last name irrelevant. “One of the things I loved about aerobatic flying as a kid and that I love about the movie business today is that, when you’re flying an airplane low to the ground, the ground doesn’t care what your last name is,” he said.  “If you hit the ground, it’s going to kill you just the same.”  A version of this article appears in print on July 6, 2015, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Producer Branches Out With ‘Terminator Genisys’ . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The son of Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, shifts from investing in films to steering them creatively, with ‘Genisys’ and the coming addition to the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise.