Film producer known for Platoon and Porky's
Born: February 14, 1935;
Died: October 8, 2018
ARNOLD Kopelson, who has died aged 83, was a film producer known for his extraordinary range - not only did he produce big-budget action movies, he was also responsible for smaller-budget, more intellectually challenging films, as well as the teen sex comedy Porky's. He won the best picture Oscar for Oliver Stone's Vietnam epic Platoon (1986), was nominated again for The Fugitive in 1993, and produced Falling Down, which features Michael Douglas as a man having a violent breakdown, and the cult noir crime thriller Seven.
A New York City native and graduate of New York Law School, Kopelson broke into show business as an entertainment and banking attorney. He started his career focusing on clients in the entertainment industry before moving into film and television sales. With his future wife, Anne, he founded Inter-Ocean Film Sales in 1972 and became one of the first producers to specialise in funding independent films based on pre-sales abroad.
A notable and very profitable project was Porky's, the low-budget and lowbrow comedy made in Canada after Hollywood shunned it that went on to make more than 100 million dollars.
Kopelson would eventually aim higher.
Director-screenwriter Oliver Stone had tried for years to get financing for Platoon, the Vietnam War drama based on his own time in the military.
A 1984 deal with producer Dino De Laurentiis fell through and led to legal action.
Kopelson stepped in, and Stone was able to make Platoon after a tumultuous production in the Philippines in early 1986, during the time the country's longtime president, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was being forced out of power.
Platoon, which starred Willem Defoe and Tom Berenger, was released in December 1986 and has been cited as the first major feature film about Vietnam directed by a veteran of the war.
Kopelson remembered reading the script by the then virtually unknown Stone for the first time. "I was overcome,” he said. “I called Oliver when I had read 50 pages, and he said, ‘Not so fast; finish the script.’ So I got into bed with Anne, and I started reading. I got goose flesh. I pictured myself as the star, walking through the jungle and never knowing when I was going to get a bullet in the head. I was totally captivated by the writing. I had an actual fantasy of winning an Academy Award while I was reading it. I thought it was the greatest writing I had ever seen."
The film was a box office success and won four Academy Awards, including one for Kopelson for best picture.
He followed Platoon with Warlock (1989) and Triumph of the Spirit, a story of a Balkan boxing champion sent to Auschwitz. The drama, which was filmed at the former concentration camp, was praised by Holocaust survivors.
Kopelson then acquired the rights to the popular 1960s television series The Fugitive and produced a movie adaptation starring Harrison Ford as Dr Richard Kimble. The film was nominated for best picture in 1994.
His wife and business partner, Anne Kopelson, said of her husband: “He worked hard to make people understand that movies can meaningful. They can have a purpose and they can be entertaining. His body of work expressed that on many levels.”
He is survived by Anne, and by three children.
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