Arnon Milchan Takes Center Stage as New Regency's '12 Years a Slave' Wins Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards

New Regency's 12 Years a Slave wins the 2014 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture. Producer Arnon Milchan thus completes an amazing journey from his controversial role in South Africa of the 1970's to the very pinnacle of Hollywood success and recognition, with a film that depicts the evil of racial discrimination in the starkest possible form. Some will view all of this with cynicism, others will see a strong measure of redemption... either way, it is a hell of a story.    

 

Arnon Milchan...New Regency....'12 Years a Slave'....Golden Globe Best Drama...On track for 'Best Film' Academy Award?

“New Regency were the last people in, but I think it’s fair to say they are the reason the movie got made”
 

 

Arnon Milchan was in South Africa recently promoting 12 Years a Slave, which was co-produced and released by his company New Regency, and distributed by Fox under the Fox-New Regency distribution agreement. South Africa is a country he knows well and has special feelings for. 12 Years a Slave won the coveted Golden Globe 'Best Drama' of 2013. Oscar nominations are to be announced on Thursday, January 16th.

Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment co-produced the film with Mr. Milchan. Plan B Entertainment President Dede Gardner explained in Screen Daily the partnership arrangement that could very well lead to Mr. Milchan's first Academy Award:

Heading into production a US distributor had yet to be attached. Summit was a potential candidate but its imminent acquisition by Lionsgate soon ruled out the company.

Paramount, which had an output deal with Plan B since 2005 and whose chairman Brad Grey co-founded Plan B with Pitt, was also a potential distributor but ultimately was not seen as the right fit.

Pitt’s outfit would instead turn to Los Angeles-based financier New Regency, whose chairman Arnon Milchan and CEO Brad Weston separately had long-term relationships with Pitt and his executives.

“We were repositioning ourselves,” says Weston of New Regency, which up to that point had focused on mainstream comedies and action fare. “We had a strategy for the company and Steve fell into that category of a wall-to-wall brilliant film-maker that we wanted to work with.”
For New Regency and all the backers, McQueen’s film represented the ultimate in highbrow but accessible film-making.

In April 2012, a few weeks before filming began, New Regency agreed to co-finance and distribute the picture via Fox Searchlight, per its output deal with Fox. In fact, the company committed less than 48 hours after reading the script.

“New Regency were the last people in, but I think it’s fair to say they are the reason the movie got made,” acknowledges Gardner."

Brad Pitt Moves in With Arnon Milchan.... Again!

Following his breakup with Jennifer Aniston in 2004 and hounded by the paparazzi, Brad Pitt moved to Arnon Milchan's house in Malibu. As described in Confidential, Top secret "Operation Brad" involved Pitt traveling to and from the studio by entering and exiting Milchan's garage on a motorcycle with a black full-face helmet, rendering him unrecognizable. Pitt met Angelina Jolie on the set of  Milchan's Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Almost ten years later, Pitt is moving in with Milchan again, this time to his movie production company New Regency.

Hollywood Reporter: "Pitt's Plan B production company, which is riding high on recent hits 12 Years a Slave and World War Z, will exit its home of eight years when its deal with Paramount expires at the end of 2013. Plan B, which Pitt runs with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, is headed toward a three-year deal with Arnon Milchan's New Regency, producer of 12 Years."