JGANovDec10.pdf - The Jewish Georgian

November-December 2010 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN Page 19
Bonnie Arnold’s outstanding career began in Atlanta
Bonnie Arnold is one of the most versatile
producers in Hollywood, renowned for a series
of landmark animated hits that have forged
new, creative ground as well as for award-winning
live-action features that have earned widespread
acclaim, numerous Oscars, and more
than $2 billion dollars in worldwide box office.
This last year, Arnold produced two of the
most admired films of the season: the blockbuster
animated family hit How to Train Your
Dragon, which won global recognition for its
inventive 3-D effects and heart-stirring story
line; and The Last Station, the independent film
that drew awards and accolades for its entertaining
and richly emotional tale about love,
marriage, and Tolstoy.
The two films could not be more different
from a production standpoint—but they share
the power of imaginative and inspired storytelling
that appeals to moviegoers of all ages.
Arnold’s production credits comprise an
entire roster of films that share this quality—
from the pioneering digital animation classic
Toy Story to the epic historical drama Dances
with Wolves. Her work in animation includes
such hits as Over the Hedge and Tarzan, while
her live-action credits include the comedy The
Addams Family. She has worked with such
top-ranked directors as Peter Weir, Tony Scott,
Stephen Frears, Barry Sonnenfeld, John
Lasseter, Michael Mann, and Dean DeBlois
and Chris Sanders.
Arnold’s journey began in Atlanta, where
she grew up going to the movies with her
mother, creating memories she still treasures.
From an early age, long before she was even
aware of its impact, she forged a belief that
families and movie-going go together.
Inspired in part by Woodward and
Bernstein’s dogged pursuit of the Watergate
scandal, Arnold first pursued a career in journalism,
studying at the University of Georgia
and earning her master’s degree at Boston
University.
But when she returned to Atlanta, she
found herself taking a job as a unit publicist on
the PBS series American Playhouse’s debut
production of “King of America.” Exposed to
the ins and outs of filmmaking for the first
time, she says she instantly caught the production
bug. At this time, Atlanta was a burgeoning
new hotspot for film and television production,
and Arnold quickly rose to serve in a
diversity of production capacities on films
including Neil Simon’s The Slugger’s Wife and
Peter Weir’s The Mosquito Coast.
On the local scene, she became known for
cultivating strong relationships, for her calm
charm and creative eye—and she, in turn,
caught the eye of seasoned film producer
David Picker, who lured Arnold to Hollywood
when he became president of Columbia
Pictures in the late 1980s.
With Picker as her mentor, Arnold went
on to serve as production coordinator on a
string of films, including Hero, starring Dustin
Hoffman; The Mighty Quinn, with Denzel
Washington; and Revenge, with Kevin Costner.
This led to her first producing assignment,
when she was asked by Costner to join his production
of Dances with Wolves as associate
producer. The film would go on to win seven
Oscars, including Best
Picture.
In 1990, she moved
on to Barry
Sonnenfeld’s adaptation
of the television classic
The Addams Family,
where she was
immersed in the complex
world of high-end
special effects. The film,
starring a comic ensemble
cast including
Anjelica Huston, Raul
Julia, Christopher
Lloyd, and Christina
Ricci, became a smash
hit, critically praised as a
visual funhouse of a
family comedy.
This, in turn, led to
an unusual opportunity—to produce the first
feature film from an upstart Northern
California animation studio known as Pixar:
Toy Story. Although Arnold had never worked
in animation before, let alone the brave new
world of computer-generated characters, she
instantly recognized that something special
was happening amid the devoted young team
of writers and animators headed by John
Lasseter.
Armed with her knowledge of how to
make a complex movie on a budget and ready
to learn in a trial-by-fire fashion, she began a
three-and-a-half year odyssey that would result
in one of the most critically admired and successful
family films of all time, nominated for
three Oscars and winner of eight Annie Awards
(the industry’s animation awards), which has
since become part of the fabric of 21st-century
popular culture.
On the heels of Toy Story’s unprecedented
appeal, Arnold became the rare woman producer
known for her ability to shepherd the
biggest animated features to the screen. She
next produced Disney’s Tarzan, featuring the
integration of traditional and computer animation
techniques called “Deep Canvas” that
pushed the state-of-the-art to the next level.
The film received 11 Annie Award nominations
and an Academy Award and Golden Globe
nomination. In 2006, Arnold teamed with
DreamWorks Animation for the first time on
Over the Hedge, featuring a clan of woodland
creatures who unite against a suburban community
encroaching on their wilderness home,
which garnered eight Annie Awards.
Yet even as Arnold was committed to the
painstaking, labor-intensive work of bringing
larger-than-life animated stories to the screen,
she was also passionately pursuing a liveaction
story she had been intrigued with for
over a decade. This was The Last Station,
which she first encountered when actor
Anthony Quinn, with whom Arnold worked on
Revenge, introduced her to the novel by Jay
Parini about Tolstoy’s tumultuous final year. At
the heart of the story, Arnold saw a timeless
and resonant tale about the ravages and wonders
of love and marriage.
Bonnie Arnold
In the early 1990s, Quinn and Arnold
began developing the
project, but after Quinn’s
death in 2001, Arnold was
determined to bring the
film to fruition. Things
took a turn when she partnered
with writer/director
Michael Hoffman
(Restoration, One Fine
Day). The result was
Hoffman’s stylish and
witty screenplay, plus
complex and juicy roles
that attracted major talent,
including Helen Mirren,
Christopher Plummer,
James McAvoy, and Paul
Giamatti.
At the same time,
Arnold was immersed in a
very different, four-year
labor of love: bringing the 3-D animated
adventure comedy How to Train Your Dragon
to the screen for DreamWorks Animation. This
was another envelope-pushing project for
Arnold, one that would merge thrillingly
inventive, three-dimensional action with a
touching tale about a Viking teen who finds his
own path to becoming a hero. Arnold oversaw
a creative team numbering more than 500 who
breathed new fire into the animation realm,
creating a film that felt like no other animated
feature before it. Full of both emotional depth
and 3-D beauty, it won unprecedented critical
praise.
How to Train Your Dragon was released
on DVD and Blu-ray on October 15.
How to Train Your Dragon and The Last
Station were released within months of each
other—and, though they took the most divergent
paths, each was a major success on its own
terms. The Last Station garnered two Oscar
nominations, as well as nominations from the
Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and
the Independent Spirit Awards (including a
nomination for Best Picture). How to Train
Your Dragon became one of the first major
box-office hits of 2010 and garnered critical
raves, including the Persol 3-D Award for the
Most Creative 3-D Film of 2010 from the
Venice Film Festival.
Arnold is currently developing a sequel to
How to Train Your Dragon with writer/director
Dean DeBlois. DreamWorks Animation SKG
3D will bring this 3D sequel to the screen in
2013. It will again feature the voice talents of
Jay Baruchel, Craig Ferguson, America
Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse,
T.J. Miller, and Kristen Wiig.
Despite the contrasting nature of How to
Train Your Dragon and The Last Station, for
Arnold, they both represent what she wants to
achieve in the entertainment business: making
movies with a heartfelt appeal that crosses generations.