By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

89th Oscar A De Luca-Todd Production

MICHAEL DE LUCA AND JENNIFER TODD
TO PRODUCE THE 89TH OSCARS®

 

LOS ANGELES, CA — Three-time Oscar®-nominated producer Michael De Luca and Emmy®-nominated producer Jennifer Todd will produce the 89th Oscars® telecast, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced today.  It will be their first involvement with the Academy Awards®, which will air live on the ABC Television Network, and broadcast worldwide, on Oscar Sunday, February 26, 2017.

“What a talented team,” said Boone Isaacs.  “Mike and Jennifer have a great working relationship and a tremendous love and respect of film, and will surely draw from their vast experience to create an exceptional and unforgettable event for movie fans everywhere.”

“We are deeply honored to produce the Academy Awards,” said De Luca and Todd.  “We both revere the Oscars and grew up watching them each year with our families.  We are so humbled and grateful to be a part of this incredible legacy, and look forward to creating an exciting show that celebrates movies and the power they have to connect us all.”

“We are thrilled to be working with Mike and Jennifer,” said Academy CEO Dawn Hudson. “In our meetings, they shared an early vision for the show that is inspired and in keeping with the films they’ve produced: entertaining, unexpected and of the highest caliber.”

“Mike and Jennifer have an intimate knowledge of the art of filmmaking. Their celebrated successes in storytelling will enhance the Oscar ceremony and capture the magic that sets the medium apart from any other,” said Channing Dungey, President, ABC Entertainment.

De Luca earned Best Picture Oscar nominations for producing “Captain Phillips,” “Moneyball” and “The Social Network.”  He is credited on more than 60 films, including such features as “Fifty Shades of Grey,” “Blow,” “Magnolia,” “American History X” and “Boogie Nights.”  A former president of production at Sony Pictures, DreamWorks and New Line Cinema, De Luca is currently producing the last two films of the “Fifty Shades” trilogy for Universal, “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” which will be released in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Todd is currently president of Pearl Street Films, the production company founded by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, where she produced the upcoming film “Live by Night,” due out December 25, and executive produced this year’s “Jason Bourne.” Her other credits include such films as “Alice through the Looking Glass,” “Celeste and Jesse Forever,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Across the Universe,” “Prime,” “Memento,” “Boiler Room,” and the “Austin Powers” films. Todd earned an Emmy nomination for her work on the HBO television movie “If These Walls Could Talk 2.”

The 89th Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center®in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT.  The Oscars also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

 

# # #

ABOUT THE ACADEMY
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a global community of more than 7,000 of the most accomplished artists, filmmakers and executives working in film.  In addition to celebrating and recognizing excellence in filmmaking through the Oscars, the Academy supports a wide range of initiatives to promote the art and science of the movies, including public programming, educational outreach and the upcoming Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is under construction in Los Angeles.
FOLLOW THE ACADEMY
www.oscars.org
www.facebook.com/TheAcademy
www.youtube.com/Oscars
www.twitter.com/TheAcademy

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon