Shootout

Peter Guber

Peter Guber has been a force in the entertainment industry for over thirty years. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts, Master of Law and Juris Doctorate degrees and admission to the New York and California Bars, he was recruited by Columbia Pictures in 1968 while pursuing an MBA degree at New York University’s Graduate School of Business. Within two years, he became Studio Chief, and during his tenure at the creative helm, Columbia surged to record-breaking profits on the strength of such critically acclaimed box office hits as Shampoo, The Last Detail, Tommy, The Way We Were, Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

In 1975, Guber resigned from Columbia and founded Casablanca Record and Filmworks with Neil Bogart. Their record operation included such superstars as KISS, Donna Summer, Captain and Tennille, The Village People and Parliament with George Clinton. It also included some of the most successful soundtracks of all time, including the Academy Award winning Midnight Express, Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross’ Endless Love, and Flashdance, which sold more than 14 million albums. During this period, Guber produced numerous television shows including Teddy White’s Emmy nominated Selling of the Presidency, the series Ocean Quest for NBC, and Mysteries of the Sea, a two hour special for ABC.

Guber launched his career as an independent film producer with The Deep, which then became one of Columbia’s top box office successes of all time. His next film, Midnight Express, earned seven Academy Award nominations for Columbia, including “Best Picture,” a Golden Globe for “Best Picture” and a place in film history, with the National Association of Theater Owners naming Guber “Producer of the Year.”

In 1979, Guber founded Polygram Filmed Entertainment where he was Chairman of the Board and CEO. He sold his interest in Polygram in 1983 and formed and served as Co-Owner of the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company (GPEC), which established a major presence in motion pictures, television and music.

Combining tremendous commercial success and critical acclaim, the films directly produced and executive produced by Guber have earned more than $3 billion in worldwide revenue and more than 50 Academy Award nominations, including four times for “Best Picture.” Rain Man, when released, was the highest-grossing Best Picture Academy Award winner ever, and Batman established new standards for success, becoming one of the highest-grossing films from all sources in movie history.

Guber’s other box office and critical hits include Michael Apted’s Gorillas in the Mist, Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, Innerspace, George Miller’s The Witches of Eastwick, Flashdance, Costa Garvas’ Missing, Tango & Cash and John Landis’ American Werewolf in London.

In 1988, GPEC became a public company with the acquisition of Barris Industries, and in 1989, it was acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) where Guber became Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. During Guber’s tenure at SPE, the company extended its leadership in production and distribution of prime time, half-hour comedy television series, including such hit shows as Married with Children, Designing Women, Seinfeld, Mad About You, and The Nanny; revitalized the two largest and most successful game shows in the world -- Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy -- nearly doubling their revenue; and continued to own daytime television with the resurgence and continued success of such soap operas as The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives. A large array of international arrangements was also undertaken at this time with the television operation utilizing its vast library to gain equity positions in the international marketplace.

Under Guber’s leadership, the company re-framed its entire exhibition circuit, becoming the premiere North American theatrical exhibition enterprise; introduced Sony’s state-of-the-art SDDS sound system; and introduced the concept of IMAX theater and films integrated into multi-plex theaters in the building, design and execution of Sony’s 67th Street Theater and IMAX complexes in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.

During Guber’s tenure as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, SPE’s Motion Picture Group achieved, over four years, an industry-best domestic box office market share, which averaged seventeen percent. During the same period, Sony Pictures led all competitors with a remarkable total of 120 Academy Award nominations, the highest four-year total ever for a single company.

SPE’s motion picture business was propelled by an enormous string of successes, which included Awakenings, Misery, Postcards from the Edge, Flatliners, Look Who’s Talking, Terminator 2, Boyz n the Hood, The Prince of Tides, Bugsy, City Slickers, The Fisher King, Basic Instinct, A League of Their Own, Mo’ Money, Single White Female, A River Runs Through It, Honeymoon in Vegas, A Few Good Men, Dracula, Sleepless in Seattle, In the Line of Fire, Groundhog Day, Cliffhanger, and Philadelphia.

While at the company, Guber assembled a strong management team, conceived and planned the development of SPE’s new world headquarters at the state-of-the-art Sony Pictures Studios, spearheaded SPE’s recapture of its own home video business, and innovated a corporate name change to strengthen the unique identities of the company’s individual businesses. In addition, Guber launched the prestigious Sony Pictures Classics, which in each of its first three years won the Academy Award for “Best Foreign Film.”

After leaving Sony in 1995, Guber formed Mandalay as a multimedia entertainment vehicle in motion pictures, television, sports entertainment and new media. Each of these enterprises has grown into effective portals in their various arenas with top-flight management infrastructures and assets.

Mandalay Pictures is a pre-eminent motion picture company that finances, produces and distributes motion pictures for the global marketplace. With its strong financial base, the company is known for its ability to assemble premier talent and develop properties that appeal to a global audience.

Mandalay Pictures’ primary distributor relationship is through its first-look arrangement with Universal Pictures. In Universal, Mandalay has access to one of the premier worldwide marketing and distribution teams on terms that limit the downside risk to Mandalay, yet still provides the ability to share significantly in any breakaway performance.

Successes for Mandalay Pictures’ management and its producing team include the box office hit, I Know What You Did Last Summer; the critically and commercially successful Donnie Brasco, starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp and directed by Mike Newell; the smashing international success Seven Years in Tibet starring Brad Pitt and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud; the commercially successful Wild Things, starring Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, Neve Campbell and Bill Murray; and Les Miserables, starring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman, and Claire Danes. Other films include Galapagos, the documentary for the Smithsonian Institution in IMAX 3D, I Still Know, the sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer; The Deep End of the Ocean, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Whoopi Goldberg; Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, starring Johnny Depp, directed by Burton; Enemy At The Gates, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Joseph Fiennes, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and Ed Harris; The Score, starring Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton and Marlon Brando; Into the Blue, starring Jessica Alba and Paul Walker; The Jacket, starring Keira Knightley and Adrien Brody; Darfur Now, produced by Don Cheadle; and Never Back Down, starring Djimon Hounsou. Currently in production for Universal Pictures is When Giants Ruled the Earth, set for a 2009 release. Upcoming for Mandalay Films is Daphne du Maurier’s thriller, The Birds, directed by Martin Campbell starring Naomi Watts.

Mandalay Series Television has enjoyed great success since 1998, launching four on-the-air series, which included Cupid for ABC, Mercy Point for UPN, Rude Awakening for Showtime, and Oh, Baby for Lifetime. Both Oh, Baby and Rude Awakening were renewed for subsequent seasons. Mandalay recently completed production on the second season of Brotherhood, the Showtime series starring Jason Clarke, Jason Issacs, Annabeth Gish and Ethan Embry. Winner of The George Foster Peabody Award in 2006, this critically acclaimed series has received a third season order from Showtime.

Mandalay Television Pictures produces high profile television movies-of-the-week and mini-series. Past successes include Dean Koontz’s number one best seller Intensity, a four hour mini series for Fox; top rated Get to the Heart (The Barbara Mandrell Story) for ABC; the four hour mini series Final Descent for CBS; and for ABC Medusa’s Child, Bad As I Wanna Be and Ali, King of the World. Other successes include Sole Survivor, based on Dean Koontz’s number one best selling book; First Daughter for Turner; and The Linda McCartney Story for CBS. Mandalay Television’s recent successes include the projects Blood Crime for USA, the network’s highest rated (Crime Friday) movie for 2002 starring James Caan and Jonathan Schaech; and X Team for ABC, starring Bai Ling (Red Corner) and Eric Mabius (Resident Evil).

Over 2006 and 2007, Mandalay Television produced four Movies of the Week based on the books of the world renowned and best-selling author Nora Roberts for Lifetime Television. The four movies, Angels Fall, Blue Smoke, Carolina Moon and Montana Sky, were among Lifetime’s highest rated MOWs ever. In addition to another four Nora Roberts titles currently being developed, Mandalay Television has over 20 projects in various states of development.

In 2004, Guber’s Mandalay Entertainment and Mosaic Media Group formed Mandalay Mosaic TV Group with Dick Clark Prod. as its key property. The Dick Clark stable includes the Golden Globes, the American Music Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards, the American Music Awards, Bloopers TV specials and the American Bandstand catalog. The production company also produces New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and the FOX summer hit, So You Think You Can Dance. In 2007, in a major sale, Red Zone Capital Fund acquired Dick Clark Productions.

Mandalay Sports Entertainment is a national sports entertainment provider with professional baseball, sports marketing and venue management. Among the professional sports franchises that are owned and operated by MSE are the Frisco RoughRiders, a Double-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers; the Dayton Dragons, a Single-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds; the Hagerstown Suns, a Single-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals; the Erie SeaWolves, a Double-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers and the recently acquired Staten Island Yankees and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, the Single-A and Triple-A affiliates of the New York Yankees. Mandalay Sports Entertainment is currently completing the sale of the Las Vegas 51s, a Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers at a record price.

Guber is Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors for Mandalay Media, a publicly traded company created by leading executives from the entertainment and investment industries. In February 2008, Mandalay Media announced its acquisition of Twistbox Entertainment, Inc., a global producer and publisher of mobile content which will be the foundation for Mandalay Media's mobile and interactive offerings. Twistbox has direct on-deck distribution with over 100 mobile operators, operates in more than 40 countries and has products and services including video rich WAP sites, mobile TV and in-house developed mobile games that reach more than one billion handsets.

In late 2006, Guber became a significant investor in and was elected to the board of directors for GoFish Corporation, an early entrant in the online video sector and the first entertainment and media network designed exclusively to distribute and monetize premium youth content across a large network of quality youth-focused sites. Sites within the network offer games, video programming, virtual worlds and other forms of social media, reaching a total of 17.4 million youth in the U.S. and 63 million world wide in the 6-17 year old age bracket, giving it the third largest audience in the kids category in the U.S. behind Disney Online and Nickelodeon Kids & Family.

Guber is a full professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and has been a member of the faculty for over 30 years. He is also a member of the UCLA Foundation Board of Trustees, as well as the winner of UCLA’s prestigious Service Award for his accomplishments and association with the school. He received his honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut, was named Albert Gallatin Fellow at New York University; is a recipient of Syracuse University’s George Arents Pioneer Award, the highest honor that can be given an alumnus, for his distinguished work in film; and is also a recipient of USC’s Dean’s Award for National Business Leadership. Guber is a sought after speaker at numerous global events and a regular news commentator on FOX, MSNBC and CNBC.

Guber co-wrote the best seller SHOOTOUT, published by Penguin Putnam, which was released in hardcover and paperback. In December 2007, Guber wrote the cover article for the Harvard Business Review titled, “The Four Truths of the Storyteller.” Guber’s also authored op-ed pieces for the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Guber can be seen every Sunday morning on AMC as co-host of the critically acclaimed national TV show, Shootout, currently in its fifth season and shown in over fifty countries worldwide and on SIRIUS Satellite Radio.