Twenty-first century Hollywood producers, whether they are single-threat producers or stars, managers, directors or screenwriters, still work to assemble films by packaging a project during the development and pre-production phases of filmmaking described above and they fulfill various producer responsibilities in the subsequent phases of filmmaking as well. It should be noted that none of the studios have producers on staff, as regular employees. Rather, they have studio executives "greenlight" productions which non-studio producers realize, and which the studio executives oversee in all phases of filmmaking. To succeed, both the studio production chief and the
Major Hollywood studios typically contract with "independent producers" to realize films which the studios can help finance and then distribute and market. If such a partnership is successful, the distributor can gain the right of first refusal for any project the "independent producer" develops. One example of this arrangement is producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment. After directing films for different distributors ( Splash , 1984, for Touchstone; and Gung Ho , 1986, for Paramount), Howard joined forces with producer Grazer to form their company. The first Imagine film was Willow (1988, for MGM); the following year, Imagine produced Parenthood for Universal distribution and inaugurated an association with Universal that continued through Apollo 13 (1995), the Academy Award ® -winning A Beautiful Mind (2001), and Cinderella Man (2005, co-produced with Touchstone and Miramax), with the exceptions of Ransom (1996) and The Alamo (2004) for Touchstone. As an independent company, Imagine Entertainment is a corporate entity separate from Universal, yet the distributor's backing facilitated the production of more than twelve Imagine titles, and Universal distribution (for even more Imagine productions) ensured that Imagine's films received the widest distribution. Ron Howard was credited as a producer for only four of the twelve films;partner Brian Grazer was a producer for all of them.
Other directors also produce many of their own films: Steven Spielberg produced nine of the sixteen films he directed between E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Munich (2005). Stars can do likewise. Tom Cruise has produced several of the films he has starred in since Mission: Impossible (1996) via his own company, Cruise/Wagner Productions, in collaboration with Paramount Pictures. It is relatively rare for a single-threat film producer to be a household name today; Jerry Bruckheimer (b. 1945), the producer of many popular television shows and box-office hits, especially action films, from Beverly Hills Cop (1984) through Top Gun (1986) to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), is one.
Jerry Bruckheimer may be the best-known single-threat producer in contemporary Hollywood. He is famous for producing fast-paced action films with major stars that thrive at the box office. As of 2003, his films collectively had grossed over $3 billion in theatrical release alone.
Bruckheimer came to filmmaking from advertising. His first producer credit (along with three other producers) was for the neo-noir Farewell, My Lovely (1975), which revived Robert Mitchum's status as a film noir icon, and his first solo producer credit was for Paul Schrader's American Gigolo (1980) with Richard Gere. In 1981 Bruckheimer partnered with Don Simpson, a former Paramount production executive, to create a series of high concept films (movies easy to summarize and advertise), such as Flashdance (1983) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984), that were extremely successful. The team crystallized its formula with the Tom Cruise vehicle Top Gun in 1986, a flag-waving action film about navy pilots in training that certified Cruise as a major star. The partnership flourished through 1995, the year of Bad Boys , with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but the pair split up shortly before Simpson died of a heart attack in 1996.
Subsequently, Bruckheimer has continued to make action films, often pairing older male stars with up-and-coming leads, as in The Rock (1996), with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage; Armageddon (1998), with Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck; and Enemy of the State (1998), with Gene Hackman and Smith again. On these films he has tended to favor particular directors with distinctive visual styles: Tony Scott for Top Gun , Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Days of Thunder (1990), Crimson Tide (1995), and Enemy of the State ; and Michael Bay for Bad Boys , The Rock , Armageddon , Pearl Harbor (2001), and Bad Boys II (2003). But he also has varied his output more, moving into other genres as well as producing highly successful shows for series television, including CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (beginning 2000), which has three spinoffs set in specific cities, as well as Without a Trace (beginning 2002) and Cold Case (beginning 2003).
Bruckheimer is closely involved in the production process, insisting on authentic historical recreations for Blackhawk Down (2001), defending Johnny Depp's casting and performance in Pirates of the Caribbean (2003), and having the film re-scored shortly before its premiere. Bruckheimer produces most of his films for Disney; Disney, in turn, provides him with $10 million a year to develop projects and set up his extensive production office and staff, and it pays him $5 million plus 7.5 percent of the studio's income from each film. Bruckheimer's skill at packaging (often original) stories, scripts, and stars with mass appeal is undeniable: Pirates of the Caribbean alone reportedly earned $654 million in domestic, international, and ancillary markets and another $360 million in DVD sales. His 2003 box-office grosses were greater than those of MGM and DreamWorks combined.
American Gigolo (1980), Thief (1981), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Enemy of the State (1998), Remember the Titans (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Bing, Jonathan, and Cathy Dunkley, "Inside the Jerry-Rigged Machine." Variety (1–7 September 2003): 1, 66–67.
Grover, Ronald. "Hollywood's Most Wanted: Jerry Bruckheimer Churns Out the Hits—and Disney and CBS Need Him Badly." Business Week (31 May 2004): 72.
Wyatt, Justin. High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood . Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
Matthew H. Bernstein
The term "independent producer" in the twenty-first century is more accurately applied to filmmakers working outside of Hollywood, but it is still as unsystematically applied as is the producer label. Typically, independent producers realize a film project without a contract with a major distributor for financing or distribution. This
situation can give filmmakers (especially the screenwriter and director) greater creative freedom than working on a project for a major distributor might allow. The producer here arranges financing sources, which range from family members, domestic banks, and loan companies to the sale of film rights to foreign television or for foreign distribution. For American distribution, the independent producer shows the completed film to major or so-called mini-major companies, such as the "boutique" divisions of the majors (Miramax at Disney, Sony Pictures Classics at Sony Pictures, Paramount Classics at Paramount Pictures, Focus Features at Universal, Fox Searchlight at Twentieth Century Fox), or to autonomous small distributors, such as Magnolia Pictures, IFC (Independent Film Channel) Pictures, Lions Gate Films, and Newmarket Films; the latter distributed Memento (2000) and The Passion of the Christ (2004) when other distributors would not.
The presentation of the independently produced film to distributors often happens at film festivals such as Cannes, Toronto, or Sundance. Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It (1986), Richard Linklater's Slacker (1991), and Kevin Smith's Clerks (1994) are all examples of successful independent productions that ultimately received national distribution and box-office success, in part because of their extremely small budgets. Examples of independent production companies that produce feature films would include Film Colony, Ltd. ( Finding Neverland , 2004), Good Machine ( Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , 2000; and Brokeback Mountain , 2005), and Killer Films ( Boys Don't Cry , 1999). The boutique distributors (among which Miramax was a pioneer before its 1993 acquisition by Disney) also co-produce independent films; their subsidiary status again demonstrates how hazy the term "independent production" can be when applied to contemporary filmmaking.
Whether a film is studio produced or independently produced, its producer fulfills a major function in a project's realization. No film is made without a producer; this is one reason why film producers are listed when films are nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards ® and why they accept the statuette when their film wins. This seems appropriate, given the varied and essential nature of the producer's contribution to the making of a film.
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Matthew H. Bernstein
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