Scott Rudin. Jerry Bruckheimer. Brian Grazer. Arnon Milchan. Joel Silver.
You may not know some of those names but chances are you’ve seen many of the movies they’ve created. These are Hollywood’s uber producers, an elite club of men, mostly—with, alas, only a few women—on whom the studios depend for a large portion of each year’s releases. Not just the blockbusters, but also an array of specialized or niche films, which studio executives invariably hope will have break-out potential.
Without these sharp, savvy operators, and the movie-making empires controlled by the likes of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Harry Potter guru David Heyman, the Hollywood machine would all but collapse.
The studios rely on these entrepreneurs to source scripts from established or rookie writers; hook up with directors and stars; in some cases bring in much-needed dollars from external investors; oversee production to ensure each movie is delivered on time and on budget; and help determine distribution and marketing strategies.
Fortunately for Hollywood, the club is growing. Among the recent additions are comedy maestro Judd Apatow, Cloverfield producer J.J. Abrams, and The Chronicles of Narnia’s Mark Johnson.
Rudin, 49, is the archetypal Hollywood producer, brash, domineering and temperamental; it’s thought he could beat Russell Crowe in phone throwing ability any day. Rumour has it he was the inspiration for Kevin Spacey's character in the Hollywood satire Swimming With Sharks. Last year, media website Gawker named him New York's Worst Boss.
But this is a guy with a great deal of sense and sensibility: he produced or exec produced both There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men, as well as The Queen, Notes on a Scandal and The Hours.
Accepting the best pic Oscar for No Country, Rudin graciously thanked his friend, actor/filmmaker Sydney Pollack, “who taught me that with the opportunity to make movies comes the responsibility of making them good.”
The industry database imdb.com lists 81 credits for Rudin, dating back to TV’s Revenge of the Stepford Wives in 1980.
“It's incredibly tough here," Rudin told The Guardian last month, when asked about his alpha-male reputation. "I think you have a responsibility to the people you're making movies with and I take that very seriously. I don't want to let up and I don't want to let down."
His current slate includes Revolutionary Road, an adaptation of the Richard Yates novel, with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, directed by Sam Mendes; an animated version of Fantastic Mr Fox, with George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Bill Murray voicing the main characters; the Coen brothers’ The Yiddish Policemen's Union; Saturday, based on Ian McEwan’s novel, starring Bill Nighy; and The Reader with director Stephen Daldry, featuring Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.
At 62, Jerry Bruckheimer boasts more hit TV shows in his resume right now than any other producer, as well as impressive credits as the producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and action movies Armageddon, Pearl Harbour, Con Air, The Rock and Top Gun.
He’s amassed a formidable TV empire built on the CSI franchises, The Amazing Race, Without a Trace and Cold Case; no wonder Forbes magazine estimated he raked in $US120 million in the year ending June 30 2007.
His approach may sound a tad mechanical when he says, “We are in the transportation business. We transport audiences from one place to another." But he seems to know his audience instinctively. “I think that there's a certain synchronicity, so far, with what I like and with what the audiences like,” he has said. “But I don't make the movies for them. I make them because I wanna go see them myself.”
Brian Grazer, 56, has run Imagine Entertainment with business partner Ron Howard for 22 years. He’s produced more than 50 movies, including American Gangster, A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code, Apollo 13 and Liar Liar, and half a dozen TV series including 24. All while retaining his company's independence—a widely envied position in the industry.
Russell Crowe is a fan: “He knows almost instantly how you really feel about something, and in Hollywood, the capital city of smoke and mirrors, that instinctive, savant-like skill gives him an alchemist's power.”
Despite his elaborately spiked hair and signature ‘uniform’ of black pants, white shirt and skinny black tie, he is said to have a relatively low profile. Maybe he’s insecure, as he confessed to The New York Times last year that he often leaves behind a small photo of himself in an inexpensive heart-shaped frame after attending a dinner or party, hiding it among his host’s family photographs. He left one such memento in Fidel Castro’s military compound.
Imdb.com shows he’s working on 15 film and TV projects in 2008-2009, ranging from Frost/Nixon to the Da Vinci Code prequel Angels & Demons and TV series The FBI.
Israeli-born Arnon Milchan, 63, a former international arms dealer, presides over the film and TV financing and production powerhouse New Regency, supplying a steady streams of films to Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox (an investor). Kerry Packer was a longtime shareholder.
Forbes estimates Milchan’s net worth at $US3 billion. He derives much of his power from being able to bring vast sums of money to the table; that gives him the freedom to produce whatever he wants. There appears to be no common thread to the movies he generates, except, presumably, a desire to make money. His output roams all the way from Fight Club, Unfaithful, Tigerland and William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to Big Momma’s House and Meet the Spartans.
If Joel Silver, 55, didn’t exist, Hollywood would have invented him. He wears loud shirts, shouts rather than talks, and often butts heads with studios. But he has few peers as a producer of hit action films as the prime mover behind The Matrix trilogy, the Lethal Weapon franchise, the first two Die Hard adventures and Predator (let’s forget the Bruce Willis stinker Hudson Hawk; I bet Joel has). And he’s had a profitable TV sideline as the executive producer of Veronica Mars and Moonlight.
Evidently he has a sense of humour, as he showed when he agreed to play a frustrated cartoon director in the opening sequence of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Embodying the financial independence of these moguls, in 2006 Silver joined forces with a consortium of financiers who agreed to provide $US220 million to produce 15 films over the next six years. Silver not only got creative control, he owns the movies outright.
“I’ve spent 20 years working for studios,” Silver said after that deal was announced, interviewed beside an L-shaped azure swimming pool at his Brentwood mansion, which he refers to as the house The Matrix built. “It was always their call.” Silver is working with the Wachowski brothers again on Speed Racer (which opens here in June) and Ninja Assassin.
The producer/writer/director/juggernaut known as Judd Apatow, 40, ran hot in 2007: he followed up his first directorial effort The 40 Year Old Virgin with the even better reviewed and attended Knocked Up, and he produced the surprise smash Superbad, which helped turn Michael Cera, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Katherine Heigl into bona-fide stars. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which he wrote and produced, was a mis-step. But he’s sure to bounce back as he’s attached to five films releasing here later this year: Drillbit Taylor (March 20), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (April 17), You Don’t Mess With the Zohan (June), Step Brothers (August) and Pineapple Express (September). The Apatow fan base is sure to grow in 2008, along with his pay cheques.
Mark Johnson hit pay-dirt as the producer of The Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe after specializing in PG fare like A Little Princess and My Dog Skip. He was partnered with director Barry Levinson for 12 years, sharing the best picture Oscar for Rain Man in 1989, then splitting in 1994.
He and director Andrew Adamson are readying the Narnia sequel, Prince Caspian, for a June release, on a budget said to be heading towards $US200 million. He promises it will be “darker, more dramatic and boy-friendly” than the first film.
Johnson aims to generate two to four films a year, big and small, that sell to both major studios and micro-indies. "I feel more ambitious now than I have ever felt," he told Variety recently. “It's not about succeeding or how many movies I make. It's playing in as many sandboxes as possible. And having fun.”
