Megan Ellison: the billionaire heiress out to save the movies

When the scabrously funny Bridesmaids staggered into cinemas recently, it swiftly reignited the debate about the way Hollywood deals with half its potential audience. Surprising, was it not, that young women might enjoy a film that treated them as something other than sad-eyed punchlines for Todd Phillips? And a little ironic given that in the first half of 2011, an actual living-and-breathing woman of 25 had quietly become one of the most important figures in the movie industry.

Her name is Megan Ellison. You will, I imagine, be hearing it again – the speed of her rise to prominence, fuelled by family wealth and apparently flawless taste, makes her an intriguing proposition. Only three years ago, she was just another fun-loving billionaire heiress barely out of her teens and having her lifestyle choices ridiculed by gossip sites; a year ago she had a single film to her name as a producer, a low-voltage psychodrama called Waking Madison that went straight to DVD. Now, however, it's been joined not only by one of the most lauded pictures of the last 12 months – the Coen brothers' True Grit, which she co-financed – but a startlingly large chunk of the most interesting movies lurking up the pipeline.

Specifically? Well (you may want to take a breath here), there's the as-yet untitled reunion of Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman; director John Hillcoat's 1920s-set The Wettest County in the World; Wong Kar-Wai's martial arts extravaganza The Grandmasters; Kathryn Bigelow's account of the killing of Osama bin Laden; a crime number from Andrew Dominik, starring Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini – and, most alluring of all, the new film from Paul Thomas Anderson. Or rather two new films from Paul Thomas Anderson, one an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's woozy crime novel Inherent Vice, the other a resuscitation of The Master, the long-gestating project widely thought to be based on the Church of Scientology's founder L Ron Hubbard, abandoned by its original backer and presumed dead until Ellison's intervention. Every one is now to be either made or distributed by her company, Annapurna Pictures.

At a time of ever-more manic risk aversion by the studios, it's little wonder Ellison's name has been prefaced in certain quarters by the word "saviour" – not just of Paul Thomas Anderson movies, but "high quality intellectual cinema" itself. And it's true that when timorous executives have their hands all but sewn into their pockets, her investments have already proved something of a godsend. Indeed, you can squint into the future and make out the perfect role for her – an idealised version of Harvey Weinstein circa 1992, a fearless champion of proper film with a stack of cash tall enough to render the studios irrelevant. Just as Harvey has Bob, she even has a brother she (occasionally) works with, even if David Ellison's taste is so far massively less interesting.

But there is a big difference. Because while the Weinsteins grew up sharing a room in a lower middle-class New York housing co-op, Megan and David had what you assume was a more spacious upbringing as the children of Larry Ellison, co-founder of software behemoth Oracle – a flamboyant Silicon Valley tycoon fond of quoting Genghis Khan as a business role model, and after a brief moment as the world's richest man during the dotcom bubble, still a respectable fifth in the chart with a personal fortune of roughly $40bn. A longtime fan of pimped-out yachts and private jets, supporting his daughter's professional ambitions either directly or with the collateral of his name is, you suspect, not something he will have to risk the gas bill money for.

So it might be tempting to think of Annapurna as a mere plaything. But then what to make of another of Ellison's recent acquisitions? Because this year's Cannes found her engaging in the kind of all-action deal-making that really gets the trade press hot under the collar – securing the rights to make another two instalments in the Terminator franchise, each to star Arnold Schwarzenegger, by personally gazumping the mega-indie Lionsgate. Look again now and Ellison's outfit starts to resemble less a boutique operation – and more a hyper-accelerated entrant to the big league.

Of course, it's nothing new for one person to wield a vast amount of clout at the top end of the industry – for much of the 80s, the entire British film business appeared to depend solely on George Harrison staying interested in HandMade Films, while in Hollywood the studios themselves were forged on the quirks of individual moguls. There again, for many film-makers, the reality of Harvey Weinstein's 90s dominance was having him take the hedge-trimmers to their work or sit on its release, absolute power leading to, let's say, a certain lightly tyrannical reputation.

And yet nothing thus far suggests Ellison would have the same tendencies. Equally, not only are the studios whose slack she's taking up in the midst of a particularly spineless phase – even in more adventurous times, their production by committee is the very deadest of hands. And as far as the purse-lipped chippiness you surely must be feeling as you read about the billionaire's 25-year-old daughter with her shiny new film company (that can't have just been me, can it?) – well, until the great day of the revolution, surely better that the Ellison billions go on Paul Thomas Anderson films than whatever Paris Hilton is currently spending her money on. I take my non-existent hat off to her. If she's reading, I do have a birthday coming up.