Walter F. Parkes

Walter F. Parkes
Walter Parkes
Born	Walter Fishman April 15, 1951 (1951-04-15) Bakersfield, California, United States
Spouse	Laurie MacDonald (?–present)

Walter F. Parkes (born April 15, 1951 in Bakersfield, California) is an American film producer, writer and former studio head.

Biography

Parkes has been associated with DreamWorks Pictures, which he ran from its inception in 1994 until 2005. A three-time Academy Award nominee as both producer and screenwriter, his upcoming movies include Men in Black 3, which will be released May 25, 2012 and Flight directed by Robert Zemeckis and staring Denzel Washington.

Other films produced or executive produced by Mr. Parkes include, the Men in Black series, The Kite Runner, Golden Globe-winning Sweeney Todd, Dinner for Schmucks, Gladiator, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Ring, The Terminal, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Road to Perdition, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Deep Impact, Twister, The Legend of Zorro and Amistad.

Parkes graduated from Yale College cum laude in 1973, and then studied communications and documentary film at Stanford University where he began his first feature length film, a documentary about the rebirth of the Nazi party in America, The California Reich. The film was nominated for an Oscar and was a special selection at the Cannes Film Festival. His next film, WarGames, in collaboration with Lawrence Lasker, garnered a “Best Original Screenplay” Oscar nomination. Parkes and Lasker co-produced several films, including Sneakers and Awakenings, a Best Picture Oscar nominee in 1990.

In 1994, Parkes was named President of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and later that year, he and his wife and business partner Laurie MacDonald were tapped to help create the DreamWorks SKG motion picture studio. As the studio’s president, Parkes, in partnership with Laurie MacDonald, oversaw development and production of all DreamWorks’ film projects, including, for only the second time in the history of the Motion Picture Academy, three consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners: American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind -- the latter two in partnership with Universal Studios. Other critical and commercial successes produced during their tenure include: Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, Robert Zemeckis’ What Lies Beneath, Adam McKay’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Michael Mann’s Collateral, and Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning drama Saving Private Ryan, which was the top-grossing film domestically of 1998.

Parkes is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The Writers Guild of America and the Global Business Network. He is on the Board of Directors for the Center for A New American Security (CNAS), an organization dedicated to the development of strong, pragmatic and principled national security and defense policies.

Parkes and his wife live in Santa Monica, California, and have two children.

Filmography

• The California Reich (1975)
• WarGames (1983)
• Volunteers (1985)
• Project X (1987)
• True Believer (1989)
• Awakenings (1990)
• Eddie Dodd (TV Series) (1991)
• Sneakers (1992)
• Little Giants (1994)
• Birdland (TV Series) (1994)
• To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
• How to Make an American Quilt (1995)
• Twister (1996)
• The Trigger Effect (1996)
• The Peacemaker (1997)
• Men in Black: The Series (1997)
• Men in Black (1997)
• Amistad (1997)
• Small Soldiers (1998)
• The Mask of Zorro (1998)
• Deep Impact (1998)
• Gladiator (2000)
• A.I. (2001)
• The Tuxedo (2002)
• The Time Machine (2002)
• Road to Perdition (2002)
• The Ring (2002)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Men in Black II (2002)
• Catch Me If You Can (2002)
• The Terminal (2004)
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
• The Ring Two (2005)
• The Island (2005)
• Just Like Heaven (2005)
• The Legend of Zorro (2005)
• The Lookout (2007)
• The Kite Runner (2007)
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
• The Burning Plain (2009)
• The Uninvited (2009)
• Dinner for Schmucks (2010)
• Men in Black III (2012)
• Flight (2012)
• Daemon (2012)

External links

• Walter F. Parkes at the Internet Movie Database