|
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Academy Award-winning filmmaker RON HOWARD (Directed by/Produced by) is one of this generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13 to the hit comedies Parenthood and Splash, he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films. Most recently, he directed the big screen adaptation of the international bestseller The Da Vinci Code, starring Oscar winner Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Sir Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Jean Reno and Paul Bettany. Prior to The Da Vinci Code, Howard directed and produced Cinderella Man starring Oscar winner Russell Crowe, with whom he previously collaborated with on A Beautiful Mind, for which Howard earned an Oscar for Best Director and which also won awards for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress. The film garnered four Golden Globes as well, including the award for Best Motion Picture Drama. Additionally, Howard won Best Director of the Year from the Directors Guild of America. Howard and producer Brian Grazer received the first annual Awareness Award from the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign for their work on the film.
Howard's skill as a director has long been recognized. In 1995, he received his first Best Director of the Year award from the DGA for Apollo 13. The true-life drama also garnered nine Academy Award® nominations, winning Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. It also received Best Ensemble Cast and Best Supporting Actor awards from the Screen Actor's Guild. Many of Howard's past films have received nods from the Academy, including the popular hits Backdraft, Parenthood and Cocoon, the last of which took home two Oscars®. Howard was honored by the Museum of Moving Images in December 2005, and by the American Cinema Editors in February 2006. On January 24, Howard, along with his partner Brian Grazer, was honored with the Milestone Award by the Producers Guild of America.
Howard also produced and directed the film adaptation of Peter Morgan's critically acclaimed play Frost / Nixon directed. The film, which was released in December 2008, has been nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, and was also nominated for The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures by the PGA.
Howard's portfolio includes some of the most popular films of the past 20 years. In 1991, Howard created the acclaimed drama Backdraft, starring Robert De Niro, Kurt Russell and William Baldwin. He followed it with the historical epic Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Howard directed Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise and Delroy Lindo in the 1996 suspense thriller Ransom. Howard worked with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan on Apollo 13, which was re-released recently in the IMAX format. Howard's other films include the blockbuster Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey; Parenthood, starring Steve Martin; the fantasy epic Willow; and Night Shift, starring Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton and Shelley Long; and the suspenseful western, The Missing, staring Oscar® winners Cate Blachett and Tommy Lee Jones.
Howard has also served as an executive producer on a number of award-winning films and television shows, such as the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and Fox's Emmy award winner for Best Comedy, Arrested Development, for which he also narrated. He is also producing the television series Parenthood, based on the comedy he directed.
Howard and long-time producing partner Brian Grazer first collaborated on the hit comedies Night Shift and Splash. The pair co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 to create independently produced feature films. The company has since produced a variety of popular feature films, including such hits as American Gangster, Friday Night Lights, The Nutty Professor, The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Bowfinger, The Paper and Liar, Liar. Howard and Grazer produced the recently released drama Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood and staring Angelina Jolie. Howard made his directorial debut in 1978 with the comedy Grand Theft Auto.
He began his career in film as an actor. He first appeared in The Journey and The Music Man, then as Opie on the long-running television series The Andy Griffith Show. Howard later starred in the popular series Happy Days and drew favorable reviews for his performances in American Graffiti and The Shootist.
Academy Award-winning producer BRIAN GRAZER (Produced by) has been making movies and television programs for more than 25 years. As both a writer and producer, he has been personally nominated for four Academy Awards, and in 2002 he won the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. In addition to winning three other Academy Awards, A Beautiful Mind also won four Golden Globe Awards (including Best Motion Picture Drama) and earned Grazer the first annual Awareness Award from the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign.
Over the years, Grazer's films and TV shows have been nominated for a total of 52 Oscars and 94 Emmys. At the same time, his movies have generated more than $13 billion in worldwide theatrical, music and video grosses. Reflecting this combination of commercial and artistic achievement, the Producers Guild of America honored Grazer with the David O. Selznick Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. His accomplishments have also been recognized by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which in 1998 added Grazer to the short list of producers with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On March 6th, 2003. ShoWest celebrated Grazer's success by honoring him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. On November 14, 2005, Grazer was honored in Los Angeles by the Fulfillment Fund. In May 2007, Grazer was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World." On January 24, Grazer, along with his partner Ron Howard, was honored with the Milestone Award by the Producers Guild of America.
In addition to A Beautiful Mind, Grazer's films include Apollo 13, for which Grazer won the Producers Guild's Daryl F. Zanuck Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Picture of 1995; and Splash, which he co-wrote as well as produced and for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay of 1986.
Grazer also produced the film adaptation of Peter Morgan's critically acclaimed play Frost / Nixon directed by Ron Howard. The film, which was released in December 2008, has been nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, and was also nominated for The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures by the PGA.
Grazer is currently in production on Robin Hood. The drama teams him up again with director Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe.
Other feature film credits include the drama Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie; the Ridley Scott directed drama American Gangster, staring Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington; the big screen adaptation of the international bestseller The Da Vinci Code, staring Tom Hanks, and directed by Oscar-winner Ron Howard; the tense drama The Inside Man, directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster; Flightplan; Cinderella Man; the Sundance acclaimed documentary INSIDE Deep Throat; Friday Night Lights; 8 Mile; Blue Crush; Intolerable Cruelty; Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas; The Nutty Professor; Liar, Liar; Ransom; My Girl; Backdraft; Kindergarten Cop; Parenthood; Clean and Sober; and Spies Like Us.
Grazer's television productions include Fox's hit Golden Globe and Emmy award winning Best Drama Series 24, NBC's Peabody Award winning series Friday Night Lights, and Fox's Lie To Me, staring Tim Roth, which premiered in January 2009. He is also working on additional television projects including Parenthood based on his 1989 film, and Wonderland, directed by Pete Berg. His additional television credits include Fox's Emmy award winning Best Comedy Arrested Development, CBS's Shark NBC's Miss Match, WB's Felicity, ABC's SportsNight, as well as HBO's From the Earth to the Moon, for which he won the Emmy for Outstanding Mini-Series.
Grazer began his career as a producer developing television projects. It was while he was executive-producing TV pilots for Paramount Pictures in the early 1980s that Grazer first met his longtime friend and business partner Ron Howard. Their collaboration began in 1985 with the hit comedies Night Shift and Splash, and in 1986 the two founded Imagine Entertainment, which they continue to run together as chairmen.
JOHN CALLEY (Produced by) who most recently produced Sony Pictures' The Jane Austen Book Club and The Da Vinci Code, is a veteran Hollywood executive and producer. Beginning his career in television production in the 1950s, Calley would go on to produce such films as The Loved One, The Cincinnati Kid, Castle Keep, and Catch-22. He later served as President of Warner Bros., during which time that studio would release such acclaimed films as Dirty Harry, A Clockwork Orange, McCabe And Mrs. Miller, Deliverance, Enter the Dragon, Mean Streets, The Exorcist, Blazing Saddles, The Towering Inferno, Dog Day Afternoon, Superman and Chariots of Fire. Following his tenure at Warner Bros., Calley returned to independent production, producing Postcards from the Edge and The Remains of the Day (which earned him a Best Picture nomination). In 1993 Calley returned to the executive suite as President and Chief Operating Officer of United Artists Pictures, and in 1996, he joined Sony Pictures Entertainment as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, a position he held until 2003. Upon leaving the Chairmanship, he immediately segued into producing Closer directed by Mike Nichols, which brought Oscar® nominations for two of its stars, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen. He also recently produced the television miniseries "The Company," based on the book by Robert Littel. The miniseries was awarded the WGA award for best writing by Ken Nolan and received a Golden Globe nomination for best miniseries.
DAVID KOEPP (Screenplay) has written and directed the films Ghost Town (2008), Secret Window (2004), Stir of Echoes (1999), The Trigger Effect (1996), and Suspicious (1994). He wrote or co-wrote Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), War of the Worlds (2005), Zathura (2005), Spider-Man (2002), Panic Room (2002), Snake Eyes (1998), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Paper (1994), Jurassic Park (1993), Carlito's Way (1993), Death Becomes Her (1992), Bad Influence (1990) and Apartment Zero (1989).
Zathura and Ghost Town were co-written with John Kamps.
Koepp was born in Pewaukee, Wisconsin and graduated from UCLA's film school in 1986.
AKIVA GOLDSMAN (Screenplay) received the 2001 Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Writers Guild Award for his screenplay A Beautiful Mind. Focusing on the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, the film was directed by Ron Howard, produced by Brian Grazer, starred Russell Crowe, and won four Oscars, including Best Picture.
Goldsman also earned BAFTA and WGA nominations for his screenplay Cinderella Man, which re-teamed him with Howard, Grazer, and Crowe.
Goldsman most recently produced the worldwide smash Hancock, starring Will Smith, which has earned over $625,000,000 around the world. Goldsman also wrote and produced the megahit I Am Legend, which also starred Smith and took in more than $250,000,000 domestically and more than $580,000,000 worldwide.
In 2006, his adaptation of Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code, directed by Howard, produced by Grazer, and starring Tom Hanks, became an international phenomenon, taking in more than $750,000,000 worldwide.
Goldsman's many other writing credits include The Client, starring Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones, Batman Forever, starring Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey, and Tommy Lee Jones, A Time to Kill, starring Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock, Practical Magic, starring Sandra Bullock, and I Robot, starring Will Smith.
As a producer, Goldsman founded Weed Road Pictures. Goldsman produced the smash hit action film Mr. & Mrs. Smith, starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and directed by Doug Liman. One of the top hits of summer 2005, the film took in more than $450 million worldwide. Through Weed Road Pictures, Goldsman also produced the hit films Deep Blue Sea, Starsky & Hutch, and Constantine. Weed Road is currently in production on Fair Game, starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, and JONAH HEX, starring Josh Brolin, Megan Fox and John Malkovich.
Goldsman grew up in Brooklyn Heights, the son of two psychotherapists, who ran a group home for emotionally disturbed children. His experiences there inspired him to become a writer, and, ultimately, informed his adaptation of A Beautiful Mind, due to his deep connection to the material.
Goldsman graduated from Wesleyan University and attended the graduate program in creative writing at New York University. He splits his time between Los Angeles and New York with his wife, Rebecca, and their dogs, Fizz, Mouse and Echo.
DAN BROWN (Based upon the Novel / Executive Producer) is the author of numerous bestselling novels, including the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Da Vinci Code - one of the best selling novels of all time. In early 2004, all four of Dan Brown's novels held spots on the New York Times bestseller list during the same week.
Brown has made appearances on CNN, The Today Show, National Public Radio, Voice of America, as well as in the pages of Newsweek, Forbes, People, GQ, The New Yorker, and others. His novels have been translated and published in more than 48 languages around the world.
Brown is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he spent time as an English teacher before turning his efforts fully to writing. In 1996, his interest in code-breaking and covert government agencies led him to write his first novel, Digital Fortress, which quickly became a #1 national bestselling eBook. Set within the clandestine National Security Agency, the novel explores the fine line between civilian privacy and national security. Brown's follow-up techno-thriller, Deception Point, centered on similar issues of morality in politics, national security, and classified technology.
The son of a Presidential Award winning math professor and of a professional sacred musician, Brown grew up surrounded by the paradoxical philosophies of science and religion. These complementary perspectives served as inspiration for his bestselling novel Angels & Demons--a science vs. religion thriller set within a Swiss physics lab and Vatican City. Recently, he has begun work on a series of symbology thrillers featuring his popular protagonist Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of iconography and religious art. The upcoming series will include books set in Paris, London, and Washington D.C.
Brown's wife, Blythe--an art history buff and painter--collaborates on his research and accompanies him on his frequent research trips, their latest to Paris, where they spent time in the Louvre for his thriller, The Da Vinci Code.
The Da Vinci Code has sold some 84 million copies worldwide and was adapted for the screen by Columbia Pictures.
BACK TO FIRST PAGE
HOME
|
|
