Adam Leipzig (born March 29, 1958) is an American film and theatre producer, film executive and writer. As a former Disney Executive, he supervised such films as Dead Poets Society (1989) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). He went on to produce such films as Titus (1999) and The Way Back (2010). While president of National Geographic Films, he acquired the international rights to March of the Penguins and created the US version.

Education

Leipzig attended Yale University as an undergraduate and there received a B.A. in literature in 1979.^[1]

Theatre career

Leipzig joined the Los Angeles Actors Theatre in Hollywood in 1979 as a stage manager and eventually became the theatre s dramaturg and one of its producers. In 1984 Leipzig was one of the members of Los Angeles theatre companies that successfully negotiated with the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival for local theatre inclusion in the festival.^[2] In 1985 the Los Angeles Actors Theatre changed its name to the Los Angeles Theatre Center and moved to a four-theatre performing arts complex in downtown Los Angeles.^[3] Leipzig was involved in plays by Dario Fo,^[4] Jon Robin Baitz, David Henry Hwang, Miguel Pi ero, Joyce Carol Oates, Charles Marowitz, William Mastrosimone, Steve Carter, Michael Frayn, Marlene Meyer and Emmanuel Fried. Leipzig was one of the producers of Secret Honor, written by Donald Freed and directed by Robert Altman, which Altman also made into a movie.^[5] Leipzig left his staff position at the Theatre Center in 1986, but continued to consult and do translations for the company.^[6] Leipzig worked with Iranian theatre artist Reza Abdoh, and after Abdoh s death in 1995 organized the archiving of his works.^[7] In 1999, Leipzig was responsible for the Internet success of Bang, Bang, You re Dead by William Mastrosimone.^[8] More recently, he produced two plays by Donald Freed: American Iliad (2001)^[9] and The Einstein Plan (2010).^[10]

Film career

Leipzig joined Walt Disney Studios as a creative executive in 1987 and in 1991 was promoted to senior vice president of motion picture production.^[11] Films he supervised included Dead Poets Society, Good Morning, Vietnam, The Doctor, Billy Bathgate, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, 3 Ninjas, The Program, Mad Love, Fire Birds and Paradise. He left to become a producer with PolyGram Entertainment s Interscope Communications in 1993, where he produced films including The Associate, Roommates, Two Much and Dead Silence.^[12] Leipzig started his own production company called Terra Bella Entertainment in 1999,^[13] where he produced films including Titus and I Was a Teenage Faust.^[14] In 2003 Leipzig became president of National Geographic Films,^[15] where he supervised acquisition and distribution of films including March of The Penguins, The Story of the Weeping Camel, Amreeka, Kekexili: Mountain Patrol and God Grew Tired of Us; and he produced The Way Back and Arctic Tale.^[16] In October, 2008, National Geographic Films announced $100 million in financing with an equity investment from Abu Dhabi Media Company and a credit facility from JP Morgan.^[17] Leipzig left National Geographic Films in March, 2010.^[18]

March of the Penguins

In 2005, when he was at National Geographic, Leipzig was responsible for March of the Penguins getting North American distribution; the film was a major box office success, made $77 million domestically to become the second-highest grossing documentary of all time^[19] and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Leipzig became aware of the film when it was being shot in Antarctica and negotiated with the film s U.S. distributor Warner Independent, to purchase the film at Sundance for $1 million and create a new English-language version with narration voiced by Morgan Freeman (written by Jordan Roberts) and a new musical score composed by Alex Wurman.^[20] The film s success marked a turning point for National Geographic.^[21]

The Leipzig Hypothesis

In a 2009 article in Screen International, Leipzig posited the hypothesis that the entertainment industry s profitability follows a wave pattern which peaks with uncanny regularity in the middle years of each decade, then bottoms out in the decade s last years, only to rise again from the 0 year driven by new innovation. ^[22] According to this hypothesis, the entertainment industry will start to show profits rising in late 2011 or early 2012, and profits will continue to rise until 2017 or 2018.

Current projects

Leipzig is listed as an executive producer of the upcoming HBO miniseries Undaunted Courage which is also being produced by Edward Norton and Brad Pitt,^[23] and he writes on the blog Cultural Weekly.

Articles

Leipzig has written for American Theatre, Written By, Screen International, and High Performance, and he was the founding editor of Theatre LA magazine.^[24] In 2005 Leipzig wrote two articles^[25][26] for the New York Times about how the movie business works for theatrical and home video releases.

References

External links