Mike Medavoy
Encyclopedia
Morris Mike Medavoy is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film producer and executive, co-founder of Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures Corporation was an American independent production company that produced movies from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion...

 (1978), former chairman of TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film production/distribution studio and subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures...

, former head of production for United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

 (1974–1978) and current chairman and CEO of Phoenix Pictures.

Early life and career

Medavoy was born in Shanghai, China in 1941 to Russian-Jewish parents, and lived in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 from 1947 to 1959, where he learned to speak Spanish fluently. He graduated from UCLA in 1963.

Medavoy began his career at Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 in 1964. In 1965 he became an agent at the General Artist Corporation and later moving into the vice president position of the Creative Management Agency.

The New Hollywood
New Hollywood
New Hollywood or post-classical Hollywood, sometimes referred to as the "American New Wave", refers to the time from roughly the late-1960s to the early 1980s when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, influencing the types of films produced, their production and...

Later he joined Creative Management as its vice president of the motion picture department in 1967. There, he worked with Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 and Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...

 amongst others and headed to IFA in 1970.

In 1974, United Artists brought Medavoy in as senior vice president of production. There, he was part of the team responsible for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 American drama film directed by Miloš Forman and based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey....

, Rocky
Rocky
Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and both written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It tells the rags to riches American Dream story of Rocky Balboa, an uneducated but kind-hearted debt collector for a loan shark in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...

, and Annie Hall
Annie Hall
Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...

, which won best Pictures Oscars® in 1975, 1976 and 1977 respectively. United Artists made a number of other notable films at the time, including Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...

, Raging Bull, Network
Network (film)
Network is a 1976 American satirical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer about a fictional television network, Union Broadcasting System , and its struggle with poor ratings. The film was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet...

 and Coming Home.

Orion Pictures

In 1978, Medavoy co-founded Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures Corporation was an American independent production company that produced movies from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion...

. During his tenure there, Orion released films such notable and successful films as Platoon
Platoon (film)
Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and stars Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth....

, Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...

, Robocop
RoboCop
RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction-action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future, RoboCop centers on a police officer who is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg known as "RoboCop"...

, Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner...

, The Terminator
The Terminator
The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron, co-written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr., and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. The film was produced by Hemdale Film Corporation and distributed by Orion Pictures, and filmed in Los...

, Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...

, and The Silence of the Lambs.

TriStar Pictures

In 1990, Medavoy became the chairman of TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film production/distribution studio and subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures...

 where he oversaw release of films such as Philadelphia
Philadelphia (film)
Philadelphia is a 1993 American drama film that was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to acknowledge HIV/AIDS, homosexuality and homophobia. It was written by Ron Nyswaner and directed by Jonathan Demme. The film stars Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington...

, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr.. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, and Edward Furlong...

, Sleepless in Seattle
Sleepless in Seattle
The film was originally to have been scored by John Barry, but when he was given a list of 20 songs he had to put in the film, he quit.#As Time Goes By - Jimmy Durante #A Kiss to Build a Dream on - Louis Armstrong #Stardust - Nat King Cole...

, Cliffhanger
Cliffhanger (film)
Cliffhanger is a 1993 American action film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow. Stallone plays a mountain climber, who becomes embroiled in a failed heist set in a U.S. Treasury plane flying through the Rocky Mountains...

, The Fisher King
The Fisher King (film)
The Fisher King is a 1991 American comedy-drama film written by Richard LaGravenese and directed by Terry Gilliam. It stars Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Mercedes Ruehl, Amanda Plummer and Michael Jeter...

, Legends of the Fall
Legends of the Fall
Legends of the Fall is a 1994 epic drama film based on the 1979 novella of the same title by Jim Harrison. It was directed by Edward Zwick and stars Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Aidan Quinn. The film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction , and Best...

 and Hook
Hook (film)
Hook is a 1991 American fantasy film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Bob Hoskins, and features Maggie Smith, Caroline Goodall, Charlie Korsmo, Amber Scott, and Dante Basco. Hook acts as a sequel to Peter Pan's original adventures, focusing...

.

Phoenix Pictures

In 1995, Medavoy co-founded Phoenix Pictures. As its chairman and CEO, Mike helped produce films such as The People vs. Larry Flint, The Mirror Has Two Faces
The Mirror Has Two Faces
The Mirror Has Two Faces is a 1996 American romance film produced and directed by Barbra Streisand, who also stars. The screenplay by Richard LaGravenese is based on the 1958 French film Le Miroir à deux faces written by André Cayatte and Gérard Oury, which focused on a homely woman who becomes a...

, U Turn, Apt Pupil
Apt Pupil (film)
Apt Pupil is a 1998 American psychological thriller film based on the eponymous 1982 novella by Stephen King. The film was directed by Bryan Singer and stars Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro...

, The Thin Red Line
The Thin Red Line (1998 film)
The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American war film which tells a fictional story of United States forces during the Battle of Mount Austen in World War II. It portrays men in: C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division; in particular those soldiers played by Sean Penn, Jim...

, The 6th Day
The 6th Day
The 6th Day is a 2000 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Roger Spottiswoode, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as family man Adam Gibson, who is cloned against his will in the future of 2015...

, Basic
Basic (film)
Basic is a 2003 American/German thriller film directed by John McTiernan and starring John Travolta, Connie Nielsen and Samuel L. Jackson.-Plot:...

, Holes
Holes (film)
Holes is a 2003 film based on the novel of the same name by Louis Sachar, who also wrote the screenplay, with Shia LaBeouf as the lead role of Stanley Yelnats...

, All the King's Men
All the King's Men (2006 film)
All the King's Men is a 2006 film adaptation of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. It was directed by Steven Zaillian, who also produced and scripted....

, Zodiac
Zodiac (film)
Zodiac is a 2007 American mystery-thriller film directed by David Fincher and based on Robert Graysmith's non-fiction book of the same name. The Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros...

, Pathfinder and Miss Potter, among others. The Thin Red Line and The People vs. Larry Flint each received Oscar nominations.

Most recently, Phoenix Pictures has produced Shutter Island and Black Swan
Black Swan (film)
Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis. Its plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet by a prestigious New York City company. The production requires a ballerina to...

. Shutter Island was released on February 19, 2010, earning over $42 million its opening weekend. Black Swan was directed by Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. He attended Harvard University to study film theory and the American Film Institute to study both live-action and animation filmmaking...

 and won numerous awards including the Oscar® and Golden Globe for Best Actress (Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...

).

In 2011, Medavoy announced his newest project surrounding the 2010 Chilean mining accident
2010 Copiapó mining accident
The 2010 Copiapó mining accident, also known as the "Chilean mining accident", began in the afternoon of Thursday, 5 August 2010 as a significant cave-in at the troubled 121-year-old San José copper–gold mine. The mine is located deep in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest and harshest...

 that left 33 men trapped underground for 69 days. Medavoy will collaborate with Chilean officials and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter José Rivera
José Rivera (playwright)
José Rivera is a playwright and the first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Oscar.-Early years:Rivera was born in the Santurce section of San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1955. He was raised in Arecibo where he lived until 1959. Rivera's family migrated from Puerto Rico when he was 4 years...

 to create an authentic retelling of this story that, as Medavoy explains, “at its heart, [is] about the triumph of the human spirit and a testament to the courage and perseverance of the Chilean people”.

Also in 2011, Medavoy announced his collaboration with The Shanghai Film Group to create both a feature film and six-hour miniseries. The feature, an adaptation of the novel The Cursed Piano, is a love story set in Japanese-occupied China concerning prosecuted Jews seeking refuge from an occupied Europe. The mini-series, Tears of a Sparrow, will focus in greater detail on the experience of these Jews in Shanghai.

Awards

  1. 1992 Motion Picture Pioneer of the Year Award
  2. 1997 UCLA Career Achievement Award
  3. 1998 The Cannes Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award
  4. 1999 UCLA Neil H. Jacoby Award for Exceptional Contributions to Humanity
  5. 2002 Israeli Film Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award
  6. 2004 Florida Atlantic University's Louis B. Mayer Motion Picture Business Leader of the Year Award
  7. 2004 UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Honorary Member Award
  8. 2005 Producers Guild of America Vision Award
  9. 2005 Inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame and received a star on Hollywood Blvd.
  10. 2007 Stella Adler Actors Studio Marlon Brando Award
  11. 2008 Jerusalem Film Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award
  12. 2009 Declared the honorary Doctorate at the Academy of Art in San Francisco
  13. 2009 Declared Chevalier of the French Government’s Legion of Honor.
  14. 2009 Independent Spirit Award
  15. 2010 Bernardo O'Higgins award from the Chilean government
  16. 2011 The Locarno Film Festival Raimondo Rezzonico Prize (Locarno, Switzerland)
  17. 2011 Hebrew University Award

Membership in film organizations

Membership in film organizations.
  1. Chairman of The Jury of the Tokyo Film Festival
  2. Advisor to The Shanghai Film Festival
  3. Advisor to The St. Petersburg Film Festival
  4. Member of the Board of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences from 1977 to 1981
  5. One of the original founding members of the board of governors of the Sundance Institute (1978)
  6. Chairman Emeritus of the American Cinematheque
  7. Chairman Emeritus of the Stella Adler Actors Studio in New york

Community contributions and other memberships

Medavoy was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles by Governor Jerry Brown and was appointed by Mayor Richard Riordan as Commissioner on the Los Angeles Board of Parks and Recreations. He is a member of the board of directors of the University of Tel Aviv. He also serves on the board of trustees of the UCLA Foundation and is a member of the Chancellor’s Associates, the Dean’s Advisory Board at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television and the Alumni Association’s Student Relations Committee.

Medavoy is the co-chairman of the Burkle Center for UCLA’s Center for International Relations and served as a member of the board of advisors at the Kennedy School at Harvard University for five years. In 2002, Governor Gray Davis appointed Mike to the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center’s Executive Advisory Board; he is also a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Mike is also on the Baryshnikov Arts Center Advisory Committee in New York, and serves on the advisory board of the University of Southern California's Center for Public Diplomacy.

Involvement in politics

In 1984, Medavoy was Co-Finance Chair of the Gary Hart campaign. He also actively participated in President Clinton’s campaigns in 1992 and 1996. In 2008, he supported Barack Obama's candidacy and his wife, Irena, served as the Co-Finance Chair of the campaign.

Books

In 2002, Simon & Schuster published Medavoy’s book, You’re Only As Good As Your Next One: 100 Great Films, 100 Good Films and 100 For Which I Should Be Shot, which became a best-selling and was subsequently released in paperback in 2003. In 2009, Mike published American Idol After Iraq; Competing for Hearts and Minds in the Global Media Age, with co-author Nathan Gardels, editor of the National Political Quarterly.

Personal life

He is married to Irena Medavoy, a founder of Team Safe-T and a charity executive and fundraiser for the Industry Task Force. Mike Medavoy has two sons, Brian and Nicholas, and resides in Beverly Hills, California.

Filmography as a Producer

  • Soul of the Game
    Soul of the Game
    Soul of the Game is a 1996 made-for-television movie about Negro league baseball.It starred Blair Underwood as Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo as Satchel Paige and Mykelti Williamson as Josh Gibson. The film depicts Paige and Gibson as the pitching and hitting stars, respectively, of the Negro...

     (1996) (TV) (executive producer)
  • The Thin Red Line
    The Thin Red Line (1998 film)
    The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American war film which tells a fictional story of United States forces during the Battle of Mount Austen in World War II. It portrays men in: C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division; in particular those soldiers played by Sean Penn, Jim...

     (1998)
  • Shake, Rattle and Roll: An American Love Story (1999) (TV) (executive producer)
  • The 6th Day
    The 6th Day
    The 6th Day is a 2000 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Roger Spottiswoode, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as family man Adam Gibson, who is cloned against his will in the future of 2015...

     (2000)
  • Vertical Limit
    Vertical Limit
    Vertical Limit is a 2000 thriller action film directed by New Zealander Martin Campbell starring, among others, Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney and Scott Glenn...

     (2000) (executive producer)
  • In the Time of the Butterflies
    In the Time of the Butterflies (film)
    In the Time of the Butterflies is a 2001 feature film, produced for the Showtime television network, directed by Mariano Barroso based on the Julia Álvarez book of the same name...

     (2001) (TV) (executive producer)
  • The Outsider
    The Outsider (2002 film)
    The Outsider is a 2002 Western film starring Tim Daly and Naomi Watts. The film is based on Penelope Williamson's novel. Similar to Angel and the Badman where John Wayne plays a wounded outlaw who is sheltered by a Quaker family.-Plot summary:...

     (2002) (TV) (executive producer)
  • Basic
    Basic (film)
    Basic is a 2003 American/German thriller film directed by John McTiernan and starring John Travolta, Connie Nielsen and Samuel L. Jackson.-Plot:...

     (2003)
  • Holes
    Holes (film)
    Holes is a 2003 film based on the novel of the same name by Louis Sachar, who also wrote the screenplay, with Shia LaBeouf as the lead role of Stanley Yelnats...

     (2003)
  • In My Country
    In My Country
    In My Country is a 2004 English-language film directed by John Boorman, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche. The screenplay, written by Ann Peacock, was based on Antjie Krog's memoir Country of My Skull....

     (2004)
  • Stealth
    Stealth (film)
    Stealth is a 2005 American science fiction action film starring Jessica Biel, Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, and Sam Shepard. The film was directed by Rob Cohen, director of The Fast and the Furious and xXx....

     (2005)
  • All the King's Men
    All the King's Men (2006 film)
    All the King's Men is a 2006 film adaptation of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. It was directed by Steven Zaillian, who also produced and scripted....

     (2006)
  • Miss Potter (2006)
  • Pathfinder (2007)
  • Resurrecting the Champ
    Resurrecting the Champ
    Resurrecting the Champ is a 2007 American drama film directed by Rod Lurie and written by Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett, based on the L.A. Times Magazine article by J.R. Moehringer. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett and Alan Alda, among others. It was filmed in Calgary, Alberta,...

     (2007)
  • Zodiac (2007)
  • License to Wed
    License to Wed
    License to Wed is a 2007 romantic comedy film starring Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, and John Krasinski and directed by Ken Kwapis. The film was released in theaters on July 3, 2007.-Plot:...

     (2007)
  • The Wildest Dream
    The Wildest Dream
    The Wildest Dream is a 2010 theatrical-release feature documentary film about the British climber George Mallory who disappeared on Mount Everest in 1924 with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine...

     (2010) (executive producer)
  • Shutter Island (2010)
  • Shanghai (2010)
  • Black Swan
    Black Swan (film)
    Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis. Its plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet by a prestigious New York City company. The production requires a ballerina to...

     (2010)
  • What To Expect When You're Expecting
    What to Expect When You're Expecting
    What to Expect When You're Expecting is a pregnancy guide, now in its fourth edition, written by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel and published by Workman Publishing...

     (2012)

External links

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