WALTER F. PARKES is a motion picture producer, writer and former ...

Walter F. Parkes
Producer
Walter F. Parkes is a motion picture producer, writer and former studio
head at DreamWorks Pictures, the motion picture studio that he and his wife
and partner, Laurie MacDonald, ran from the company’s inception through
2005.
Films produced or executive produced by Parkes include Gladiator, Minority
Report, the Men in Black series, Catch Me if You Can, The Mask of Zorro,
The Ring, Awakenings and Amistad, as well as the screen adaptations of the
novel The Kite Runner and of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, which
won the 2009 Golden Globe ® Award for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy. In total, films produced or
executive produced by Parkes have earned in excess of $6 billion in worldwide box office. In May, Parkes
wrapped Men in Black 3, which earned more than $599 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing
title in the Sony franchise. His current projects include the buzz-worthy upcoming film Flight, starring
Denzel Washington and directed by Robert Zemeckis, out on November 2, 2012. Additionally, he has two
highly anticipated projects in the works with NBC – “CrossBones” and an untitled United Nations series.
As a studio executive, Parkes, along with MacDonald, was responsible for the development and production
of the company’s diverse slate of films, which achieved both box office success and critical acclaim,
including—for only the second time in the history of the Motion Picture Academy—three consecutive Best
Picture Oscar® winners: American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind, the latter two produced in
partnership with Universal. Other critical and commercial successes produced during their tenure include:
Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, Robert Zemeckis’ What Lies Beneath, Adam McKay’s Anchorman:
The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Michael Mann’s Collateral and Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award ® – and
Golden Globe ® Award–winning drama Saving Private Ryan, which was the top-grossing film domestically
of 1998.
In 2009, Parkes and MacDonald teamed with the Abu Dhabi Media Company to form Parkes/MacDonald
Imagenation, a partnership that funds future screenplay development for the duo’s projects at DreamWorks
and other studios, and provides production co-financing on selected films.
Parkes himself is a three-time Academy Award ® nominee, earning his first nomination as the director/
producer of the 1978 documentary California Reich, which exposed neo-Nazi activities in California. He
garnered his second Oscar ® nomination for writing (with Lawrence Lasker) the original screenplay for
WarGames, and his third nod was for his work as a producer on the Best Picture nominee Awakenings.
Parkes also co-wrote and produced the tech-thriller Sneakers, starring Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier.

Parkes is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Writers Guild of America,
and the Global Business Network. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Arts & Culture Dialog
Initiative of the US-Islamic World Forum for the Brookings Institute, and the boards of the Starlight
Foundation and Para Los Niños Charter School, which provides services for the children of the working
poor of Downtown Los Angeles. For the last six years Parkes has served as president of Yale’s University
Council, which advises President Richard Levin on academic matters.
Parkes resides in Santa Monica, California, and New York City, New York. He is a graduate of Yale University
and attended the School of Communications at Stanford University. He is married to his producing partner
Laurie MacDonald, with whom he has two children: Jane, a teacher in the Early Education program at
the UCLA Laboratory School, and Graham, a second-year student in the department of dramatic writing
at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts.