Walter F. Parkes
Encyclopedia
Walter F. Parkes is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

, writer and former studio head.

Biography

Parkes has been associated with DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...

 Pictures, which he ran from its inception in 1994 until 2005. A three-time Academy Award nominee as both producer and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

, his most recent movies include The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner (film)
The Kite Runner is a 2007 drama film directed by Marc Forster based on the novel of the same name by Khaled Hosseini. It tells the story of Amir, a well-to-do boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who is tormented by the guilt of abandoning his friend Hassan, the son of his father's...

and Golden Globe-winning Sweeney Todd. Other films produced or executive produced by Mr. Parkes include, the Men in Black
Men in Black (series)
The Men in Black are a fictional secret organization which monitors and suppresses paranormal activity on Earth, including aliens, demons and mutants, while keeping the public ignorant of such occurrences. They were created by Lowell Cunningham, which were based on the Men in Black myths...

series, Gladiator
Gladiator (2000 film)
Gladiator is a 2000 historical epic film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays the loyal Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed...

, Minority Report
Minority Report (film)
Minority Report is a 2002 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the short story "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C...

, Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 American biographical comedy-drama film based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars by posing as a Pan American World Airways pilot, a Georgia doctor, and a Louisiana parish prosecutor...

, The Ring, The Terminal
The Terminal
The Terminal is a 2004 American comedy-drama film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It is about a man trapped in a terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when he is denied entry into the United States and at the same time cannot...

, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a 2004 black comedy film directed by Brad Silberling. It is an adaptation of the The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window, being the first three books in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket...

, Road to Perdition
Road to Perdition
Road to Perdition is a 2002 American crime film directed by Sam Mendes. The screenplay was adapted by David Self, from the graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins. The film stars Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig...

, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Deep Impact
Deep Impact (film)
Deep Impact is a 1998 science-fiction disaster-drama film released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks in the United States on May 8, 1998. The film was directed by Mimi Leder and stars Robert Duvall, Elijah Wood, Téa Leoni, and Morgan Freeman...

, Twister, The Legend of Zorro
The Legend of Zorro
The Legend of Zorro is a 2005 sequel to The Mask of Zorro , both directed by Martin Campbell. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reprise their roles as the titular hero and his spouse, and Rufus Sewell stars as the villain...

and Amistad.

Parkes graduated from Yale College
Yale College
Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges.-Residential colleges:...

 cum laude in 1973, and then studied communications and documentary film at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 where he began his first feature length film, a documentary about the rebirth of the Nazi party in America, The California Reich
The California Reich
The California Reich is a 1975 documentary on a group of Neo-Nazis in San Francisco, California and Tracy, California, USA. They are members of the National Socialist White People's Party a US Nazi party started by George Rockwell. The film received a nomination in 1976 by the Academy Awards for...

. The film was nominated for an Oscar and was a special selection at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

. His next film, WarGames
WarGames
WarGames is a 1983 American Cold War suspense/science-fiction film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film stars Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy....

, in collaboration with Lawrence Lasker
Lawrence Lasker
Lawrence C. Lasker is a screenwriter and producer who entered American film in 1983 as writer of the movie WarGames. He is the son of actress Jane Greer and producer Edward Lasker...

, garnered a “Best Original Screenplay” Oscar nomination. Parkes and Lasker co-produced several films, including Sneakers
Sneakers (film)
Sneakers is a 1992 caper film directed by Phil Alden Robinson, written by Robinson, Walter F. Parkes, and Lawrence Lasker and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn...

and Awakenings
Awakenings
Awakenings is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir Awakenings. It tells the true story of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer and portrayed by Robin Williams who, in 1969, discovers beneficial effects of the then-new drug L-Dopa...

, a Best Picture Oscar nominee in 1990.

In 1994, Parkes was named President of Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

’s Amblin Entertainment
Amblin Entertainment
Amblin Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1981. Amblin is only a production company, and has never distributed its own movies, nor has it fully financed its...

 and later that year, he and his wife and business partner Laurie MacDonald
Laurie MacDonald
Laurie MacDonald is a film producer. She is married to Walter F. Parkes and is a production executive of DreamWorks. Her credits include:*The Ring*The Terminal*Cloud Atlas *Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events...

 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
American Beauty (film)
American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged magazine writer who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela...

, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind (film)
A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American drama film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. The film was directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman. It was inspired by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1998 book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar...

-- the latter two in partnership with Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

. Other critical and commercial successes produced during their tenure include: Cameron Crowe
Cameron Crowe
Cameron Bruce Crowe is an American screenwriter and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes....

’s Almost Famous
Almost Famous
Almost Famous is a 2000 musical comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe and telling the fictional story of a teenage journalist writing for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the fictitious rock band Stillwater , and his efforts to get his first cover story published...

, Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis
Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...

What Lies Beneath
What Lies Beneath
What Lies Beneath is a 2000 American supernatural horror-thriller film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It stars veteran actors Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as a well-to-do couple who experience a strange haunting that uncovers secrets about their past....

, Adam McKay
Adam McKay
Adam McKay is an American screenwriter, director, comedian, and actor. He is most famous for his partnership with comedian Will Ferrell, with whom he co-wrote the films Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys....

’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, or simply Anchorman, is a 2004 American comedy film, directed by Adam McKay and starring Will Ferrell. The film, which was also written by Ferrell and McKay, is a tongue-in-cheek take on the culture of the 1970s, particularly the then-new Action News format...

, Michael Mann’s Collateral
Collateral (film)
Collateral is a 2004 crime thriller film starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. It was directed by Michael Mann and written by Stuart Beattie. It was Mann's first feature film to be shot mostly with high-definition cameras. Mann had previously used the format for portions of Ali and for his CBS drama...

, and Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning drama Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Robert Rodat. The film is notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944....

, which was the top-grossing film domestically of 1998.

Parkes is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

, The Writers Guild of America and the Global Business Network
Global Business Network
Global Business Network, or GBN, is a strategy consulting firm and member of Monitor Group, that helps businesses, NGOs, and governments use scenario planning to plan for multiple possible futures....

. He is the president of Yale’s University Council, which advises President Richard Levin and the other officers about selected academic and administrative issues. Other non-profit activities include serving on the boards of Para Los Niños Charter School which provides services for the children of the working poor of Downtown Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, and the Starbright Foundation, an organization that develops and provides products and services for chronically sick children.

Parkes and his wife live in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

, and have two children.

Filmography

  • The California Reich
    The California Reich
    The California Reich is a 1975 documentary on a group of Neo-Nazis in San Francisco, California and Tracy, California, USA. They are members of the National Socialist White People's Party a US Nazi party started by George Rockwell. The film received a nomination in 1976 by the Academy Awards for...

    (1975)
  • WarGames
    WarGames
    WarGames is a 1983 American Cold War suspense/science-fiction film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film stars Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy....

    (1983)
  • Volunteers
    Volunteers (film)
    Volunteers is a 1985 comedy directed by Nicholas Meyer and starring Tom Hanks and John Candy.-Plot:Lawrence Bourne III is a spoiled rich kid with a large gambling debt in the 1960s. After his father, Lawrence Bourne Jr...

    (1985)
  • Project X (1987)
  • True Believer
    True Believer (1989 film)
    True Believer is a 1989 courtroom drama directed by Joseph Ruben and released by Columbia Pictures.-Synopsis:The film stars James Woods as burnt-out attorney Eddie Dodd, who has left behind civil rights work to defend drug dealers. Robert Downey Jr...

    (1989)
  • Awakenings
    Awakenings
    Awakenings is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir Awakenings. It tells the true story of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer and portrayed by Robin Williams who, in 1969, discovers beneficial effects of the then-new drug L-Dopa...

    (1990)
  • Eddie Dodd (TV Series) (1991)
  • Sneakers
    Sneakers (film)
    Sneakers is a 1992 caper film directed by Phil Alden Robinson, written by Robinson, Walter F. Parkes, and Lawrence Lasker and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn...

    (1992)
  • Little Giants
    Little Giants
    Little Giants is a 1994 family comedy film, starring Rick Moranis and Ed O'Neill as brothers in a small Ohio town, coaching rival Pee-Wee Football teams.-Synopsis:...

    (1994)
  • Birdland (TV Series) (1994)
  • To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
    To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
    To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar is a 1995 American comedy film, starring Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and John Leguizamo as three New York drag queens who embark on a road trip...

    (1995)
  • How to Make an American Quilt
    How to Make an American Quilt
    How to Make an American Quilt is a 1995 movie which was directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and stars Winona Ryder, Maya Angelou, Ellen Burstyn and Anne Bancroft...

    (1995)
  • Twister (1996)
  • The Trigger Effect
    The Trigger Effect
    The Trigger Effect is a 1996 movie starring Kyle MacLachlan, Elisabeth Shue and Dermot Mulroney.-Plot:The story starts off with a young married couple, Annie and Matthew, played by Elizabeth Shue and Kyle MacLachlan, returning home from the movies to find their infant child screaming with a high...

    (1996)
  • The Peacemaker
    The Peacemaker (1997 film)
    The Peacemaker is a 1997 American action/thriller film starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman and directed by Mimi Leder. It is also notable as being the first film released by DreamWorks...

    (1997)
  • Men in Black: The Series
    Men in Black: The Series
    Men in Black: The Series also known as Men in Black: The Animated Series is an American animated television series that aired during The WB's Kids' WB programming block for four seasons from 1997 through 2001.The show features characters from 1997's science fiction film Men in Black, which was...

    (1997)
  • Men in Black
    Men in Black (film)
    Men in Black is a 1997 science fiction comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith and Vincent D'Onofrio. The film was based on the Men in Black comic book series by Lowell Cunningham, originally published by Marvel Comics. The film featured the creature effects...

    (1997)
  • Amistad
    Amistad (1997 film)
    Amistad is a 1997 historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg based on the true story of a mutiny in 1839 by newly captured African slaves that took place aboard the ship La Amistad off the coast of Cuba, the subsequent voyage to the Northeastern United States and the legal battle that...

    (1997)
  • Small Soldiers
    Small Soldiers
    Small Soldiers is a 1998 American action/science fiction film directed by Joe Dante starring Gregory Smith and Kirsten Dunst. The film revolves around two teenagers , who get caught in the middle of a war between two factions of sentient action figures, the Gorgonites and the Commando...

    (1998)
  • The Mask of Zorro
    The Mask of Zorro
    The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the Zorro character created by Johnston McCulley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stuart Wilson...

    (1998)
  • Deep Impact
    Deep Impact (film)
    Deep Impact is a 1998 science-fiction disaster-drama film released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks in the United States on May 8, 1998. The film was directed by Mimi Leder and stars Robert Duvall, Elijah Wood, Téa Leoni, and Morgan Freeman...

    (1998)
  • Gladiator
    Gladiator (2000 film)
    Gladiator is a 2000 historical epic film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays the loyal Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed...

    (2000)
  • A.I. (2001)
  • The Tuxedo
    The Tuxedo
    The Tuxedo is a 2002 American comedy-action film directed by Kevin Donovan and starring Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt. It is a spy spoof that involves a special tuxedo that grants its wearer special abilities and a corporate terrorist threatening to poison the United States' fresh water...

    (2002)
  • The Time Machine
    The Time Machine (2002 film)
    The Time Machine is a 2002 American science fiction film loosely adapted from the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells, and the 1960 film screenplay by David Duncan...

    (2002)
  • Road to Perdition
    Road to Perdition
    Road to Perdition is a 2002 American crime film directed by Sam Mendes. The screenplay was adapted by David Self, from the graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins. The film stars Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig...

    (2002)
  • The Ring
    The Ring (2002 film)
    The Ring is a 2002 American psychological horror film directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson. It is a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring....

    (2002)
  • Minority Report
    Minority Report (film)
    Minority Report is a 2002 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the short story "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C...

    (2002)
  • Men in Black II
    Men in Black II
    Men in Black II is a 2002 science fiction action comedy starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The film also stars Lara Flynn Boyle, Johnny Knoxville, Rosario Dawson and Rip Torn...

    (2002)
  • Catch Me If You Can
    Catch Me If You Can
    Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 American biographical comedy-drama film based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars by posing as a Pan American World Airways pilot, a Georgia doctor, and a Louisiana parish prosecutor...

    (2002)
  • The Terminal
    The Terminal
    The Terminal is a 2004 American comedy-drama film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It is about a man trapped in a terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when he is denied entry into the United States and at the same time cannot...

    (2004)
  • Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
    Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
    Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a 2004 black comedy film directed by Brad Silberling. It is an adaptation of the The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window, being the first three books in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket...

    (2004)
  • The Ring Two
    The Ring Two
    The Ring Two is a 2005 American psychological horror film, and a sequel to the 2002 film The Ring, which was a remake of the 1998 Japanese film Ring...

    (2005)
  • The Island
    The Island (2005 film)
    The Island is a 2005 American science fiction/thriller film directed by Michael Bay and starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. It was released on July 22, 2005 in the United States, and was nominated for three awards including the Teen Choice Award....

    (2005)
  • Just Like Heaven (2005)
  • The Legend of Zorro
    The Legend of Zorro
    The Legend of Zorro is a 2005 sequel to The Mask of Zorro , both directed by Martin Campbell. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reprise their roles as the titular hero and his spouse, and Rufus Sewell stars as the villain...

    (2005)
  • The Lookout (2007)
  • The Kite Runner
    The Kite Runner (film)
    The Kite Runner is a 2007 drama film directed by Marc Forster based on the novel of the same name by Khaled Hosseini. It tells the story of Amir, a well-to-do boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who is tormented by the guilt of abandoning his friend Hassan, the son of his father's...

    (2007)
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
  • The Burning Plain
    The Burning Plain
    The Burning Plain is a 2008 drama film directed and written by Guillermo Arriaga, the screenwriter of Amores perros , 21 Grams , and Babel . The film stars Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Basinger and Joaquim de Almeida...

    (2009)
  • The Uninvited
    The Uninvited (2009 film)
    The Uninvited is a 2009 American remake of the 2003 South Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters. It is unrelated to another 2003 Korean horror film and a 1944 American film, both of which have the same name.-Plot:...

    (2009)
  • Dinner for Schmucks
    Dinner for Schmucks
    Dinner for Schmucks, a 2010 screwball comedy film, is the American adaptation of the French film Le Dîner de Cons , being described by the director as "inspired by" the original rather than a remake of it...

    (2010)
  • Cloud Atlas (2012)
  • Men in Black III
    Men in Black III
    Men in Black III is an upcoming 3D science fiction comedy film starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones...

    (2012)
  • Daemon (2012)

External links

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