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The Sixth Sense
Background:
One of the Hollywood’s most successful producers who began his career as
location manager or associate producer on the writer/director Peter Bogdanovich
films like The Last Picture Show (1971), What’s Up, Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon
(1973), and film director, Frank Marshall has been linked to an imposing
percentage of the highest grossing American films. With Amblin Entertainment,
the production company he founded with Steven Spielberg and wife Kathleen
Kennedy in 1984, he has been responsible for such films as the Indiana Jones
trilogy: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, earned an Oscar nod for Best Picture),
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doo (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade (1989), the popular Michael J. Fox starring vehicle Back to the Future
series (1985, 1989, and 1990), Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985), The Color
Purple (1985, received next Academy Award nod), Empire of the Sun (1987), Robert
Zameckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, won a David di Donatello Award), Always
(1989) and Hook (1991). Then through the Marshall/Kennedy Company, a film
production company formed in 1992, which presently has a contract with Universal
Pictures, one of the Hollywood’s most successful producers, Marshall, has
produced films like the highly successful thriller The Sixth Sense (1991, netted
third Oscar nod, in addition to a BAFTA and an AFI nominations), Snow Falling on
Cedars (1999), A Map of the World (1999), Signs (2002), the Gary Ross-directed
Seabiscuit (2003, picked up fourth Oscar nomination and a PGA Golden Laurel
nomination), The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Mr.
3000 (2004), Roving Mars (2006) and Hoot (2006).
“I love supporting a director’s vision, but sometimes if I get passionate about
a story, I want to be the storyteller - as in Eight Below.”
As a director, Marshall had his first taste of directing motion picture with the
1990 comedy/thriller Arachnophobia, which brought him a Saturn nomination. He
also helmed 1993’s Alive: The Miracle of the Andes, 1995’s Congo (earned a
Saturn nomination), and more recently 2006’s Eight Below, starring Paul Walker.
The recipient of the 1982 ShoWest Convention Producer of the Year also has
served as second unit director on a number of movies, including Bogdanovich’s
Noises Off (1992).
UCLA’s Alumnus
Childhood and Family:
Son of composer Jack Marshall, Frank Marshall was born on September 13, 1946, in
Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Newport Harbor High School in Newport
Beach, California, in 1964, where Anthony Zerbe and Paul Lemat were his
schoolmates, and studied political science at the University of California at
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, graduating in 1968. At UCLA, Frank was a
member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.
Frank is married to Kathleen Kennedy. They have worked together since 1984.
Seabiscuit
Career:
Frank Marshall got his start on entertainment industry as a protégé of
writer/director Peter Bogdanovich, then a film critic, whom he met in 1967, at a
birthday party for the daughter of director John Ford, a Marshall family friend.
He invited Marshall, who at the time was an undergrad at UCLA, to work in
various capacities including building and decorating sets and appearing in a bit
part on the production crew of Bogdanovich’s first directorial film, Target
(1968). After receiving his degree, he traveled throughout Europe and planned to
attend law school upon his return. Instead of continuing his studies, he
rejoined Bogdanovich for the director’s signature film The Last Picture Show
(1971), where he served as location manager as well as portraying the character
Tommy Logan, and stayed with the same capacity for Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc?
(1972) and Bud Yorkin’s The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973) before earning his
first credit as a line producer with 1972’s The Other Side of the Wind, directed
and written by Orson Welles. The following year saw Marshall as an associate
producer for Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon, and in 1979, he received his first
executive producer credit in the Walter Hill-helmed The Warriors.
Marshall’s breakthrough came along in 1981, when he began partnership with
director Steven Spielberg as producer of the Oscar winner Raiders of the Lost
Ark, a 1981 adventure film starring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones where
Marshall also appeared in a bit part as a pilot in the opening sequence. The
film brought Marshall an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Raiders of
the Lost Ark also marked Marshall’s first affiliation with writer George Lucas
and his producer-wife Kathleen Kennedy, in addition to Spielberg.
Three years later, in 1984, Marshall, with Kennedy and Spielberg, co-founded
Amblin Entertainment, one of the industry’s most prolific and lucrative
production companies. He then executive produced the installment Indiana Jones
and the Temple of Doo (1984), Gremlins (1984), Fandango (1985), The Goonies
(1985) and Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). He also served as production executive
for Robert Zemeckis’ well-liked Back to the Future (1985), sharing with Kennedy
and Spielberg. It was also in 1985 that Marshall gained his next Oscar
nomination for his work on the Danny Glover-Whoopi Goldberg vehicle The Color
Purple, directed by Steven Spielberg. The producer shared the Best Picture nod
with Spielberg, Kennedy and Quincy Jones.
Marshall maintained his hectic schedule for the remainder of the decade. He
produced the Steven Spielberg-directed Empire of the Sun (1987) and Always
(1989) and rejoined Zameckis as a producer of his animation movie Who Framed
Roger Rabbit (1988), where Marshall took home a 1989 David di Donatello for Best
Producer – Foreign. He also executive produced the last trilogy Indiana Jones
and the Last Crusade (1989) and the second sequel Back to the Future Part II
(1989). As an executive producer of the 1989 drama/comedy Dad, starring Jack
Lemmon and Ted Danson and directed by Gary David Goldberg, he won a Wise Owl for
Television and Theatrical Film Fiction from the 1990 Retirement Research
Foundation. During the 1980s, on the small screen, Marshall also served as
production executive on multiple “Making of...”specials about his high-profile
Spielberg projects.
After executive producing such films as Joe Versus the Volcano, Back to the
Future Part III and Roller Coaster Rabbit (all 1990), Marshall made his film
directorial debut in 1990’s Arachnophobia, an enjoyably old-fashioned
comedy-thriller about toxic spiders on the movable in suburbia, which earned him
a Saturn nod for Best Director. He had previously served as second unit director
on many films. Marshall left Amblin in 1991 and founded The Kennedy/Marshall
Company with his spouse the next year. Still in 1992, he rejoined long-term
collaborator Bogdanovich for Noises Off, where he served as producer and second
unite director. Marshall made his TV directing debut a year later with the CBS
series “Johnny Bago,” a fantastically weird satire of “The Fugitive” and the
like, which he executive produced with Robert Zemeckis. Marshall directed his
next movie Alive, a joint production of Paramount and Touchstone, that same
year, but it was his behind-the-scene-effort in Congo (1995), also an executive
producer, that won Marshall his second Saturn nomination.
After Congo, Marshall jointly directed the miniseries “From the Earth to the
Moon” (1998), as well as produced the movies The Indian in the Cupboard (1995),
Scott Hicks’ Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) and A Map of the World (1999). He
also produced the blockbuster smash hit thriller The Sixth Sense (1999), with
his wife, which earned an Academy Award nod for Best Picture, a BAFTA Film nod
for Best Film and an Australian Film Institute nod for Best Foreign Film.
Directed and written by M. Night Shyamalan, the film starred Bruce Willis and
child star Haley Joel Osment.
Marshall reunited with Shyamala for 2002’s Signs, and executive produced the
Matt Damon vehicle The Bourne Identity, directed by Doug Liman, that same year.
With his wife and director Gary Ross, the producer enjoyed success with
Seabiscuit (2003) when the film picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Picture
and a PGA Golden Laurel nod for Motion Picture Producer of the Year. Based on a
true story, the film also netted a Golden Globe nomination for Best Dramatic
Picture. He continued to produce/executive produce The Young Black Stallion
(2003), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Mr. 3000 (2004), Roving Mars (2006) and
Hoot (2006). 2006 also saw Marshall return to the director’s chair in Eight
Below, an adventure movie starring Paul Walker where Marshall also served as
production executive.
Currently, 61-year-old Marshall is busy producing the movies The Bourne
Ultimatum (2007), Crossing Over (2007), Emma’s War (2007), The Diving Bell and
the Butterfly (2008), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), The Spiderwick
Chronicles (2008), Indiana Jones 4 (2008) and Jurassic Park IV (2008). He is
also the producer of the TV miniseries “The Talisman” (2008) and the untitled
Lance Armstrong Project (2007).
Awards:
