The winner will have the opportunity to meet with the legendary 7-time Oscar-winning film producer Mike Medavoy to pitch a movie idea and receive thoughts, feedback, and advice.
Sample some of the best American films over the past forty years and there’s a good chance Mike Medavoy played in a role in the success of many of them. From agent to studio chief to producer, he has been involved with over 300 feature films, of which 17 have been nominated and 7 have won Best Picture Oscars, as well as numerous international film festival awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Medavoy began his career at Universal Studios in 1964. He rose from the mailroom to become a casting director. In 1965, he became an agent at General Artist Corporation and then vice president at Creative Management Agency. Joining International Famous Agency as vice president in charge of the motion picture department in 1971, he worked with such prestigious clients as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, Hal Ashby, Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Gene Wilder, Jeanne Moreau, and Jean-Louis Trintignant among many others.
United Artists brought him in as senior vice president of production in May of 1974, where he was part of the team responsible for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, and Annie Hall, which won Best Picture Oscars in 1975, 1976, and 1977, respectively. Other notable films included Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Network, and Coming Home. In 1978, Medavoy co-founded Orion Pictures where, during his tenure, Platoon, Amadeus, Robocop, Hannah and Her Sisters, Caddyshack, Arthur, The Terminator, Dances With Wolves, and Silence of the Lambs were released.
In 1990, after twelve successful years at Orion, Medavoy became chairman of TriStar Pictures, where he oversaw such critically-acclaimed box office hits as Philadelphia, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Sleepless in Seattle, Cliffhanger, The Fisher King, Legends of the Fall, and Steven Spielberg’s Hook. As chairman and co-founder of Phoenix Pictures, Medavoy has brought to the screen The People vs. Larry Flint, The Mirror Has Two Faces, U-Turn, The Thin Red Line, Basic, Holes, All the King’s Men, Zodiac, and Miss Potter, among others. These films have received numerous nominations, won two Golden Bears at the Berlin Film Festival, five Golden Satellite Awards, a cinematography award from the ASC and nominations from the DGA and WGA for Terrance Malick. The Thin Red Line and The People vs. Larry Flint each received Oscar nominations.
In 2002, Simon & Schuster published Mr. Medavoy’s best-selling book, You’re Only As Good As Your Next One – which was subsequently released in paperback in 2003. Mike’s new book entitled American Idol After Iraq; Competing for Hearts and Minds in the Global Media Age and published in 2009, reflects on the impact of media on U.S. foreign policy with co-author Nathan Gardels, editor of the National Political Quarterly. Mike was born in Shanghai, China in 1941 to Russian-Jewish parents and lived in Chile from 1947-1957. He graduated from UCLA in 1963. He is married to Irena Medavoy, a founder of Team Safe-T and a charity executive and fundraiser for Industry Task Force. Mike Medavoy has two sons, Brian and Nicholas, and resides in Beverly Hills, California.