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In Remembrance: Robert Newmyer
Robert Newmyer, the independent film producer behind the hits
sex, lies and videotape (1989) and Training Day (2001),
has passed away on December 12, 2005 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He
was 49.
Born in 1956 in Washington, D.C., Newmyer graduated from Swarthmore
College. It was while attending the Harvard Business School that
Newmyer was inspired to enter the film business after seeing Steven
Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (198-). After working
several years at Columbia Pictures as a vice-president in charge of
production and acquisitions, Newmyer formed Outlaw Productions with
Jeffrey Silver.
Outlaw scored a hit with their first film, director Steven
Soderbergh’s critically acclaimed sex, lies and videotape.
The company’s next few features – comedies such as Don’t Tell Mom
The Babysitter’s Dead (1991), Mr. Baseball (1992) and
Wagons East (1994) – unfortunately did not live up to
expectations. The company’s next big hit came with the Tim Allen
Christmas comedy The Santa Clause (1994).
Newmyer and Outlaw Productions continued to concentrate on producing
comedies including Addicted To Love, How To Be A Player
(both 1997), Three To Tango (1999), The Santa Clause 2
(2002) and National Security (2003). In a rare foray into
drama, Newmyer produced the 2001 gritty story of police corruption
Training Day which earned a Best Actor Oscar for Denzel Washington.
While Newmyer’s company had production deals with various studios,
he was not above financing his own projects, even if there was no
studio set to distribute them. In early 2005, Newmyer mortgaged his
homes in Los Angeles and Telluride, Colorado to raise the $3 million
needed to finance the romantic comedy Phat Girlz. The gamble
paid off as the film was picked up by Fox Searchlight Pictures for
release in April 2006.
Other recent films Newmyer has produced include The Thing About
My Folks (2005) and a third Santa Clause movie (scheduled
for release next Christmas).
Newmyer was in Toronto overseeing the production of Breach –
drama about an FBI agent who suspects his superior is a security
risk – at the time of his passing. |
