THR's Executive Roundtable: 6 Movie Moguls Sound Off on Second Careers, Favorite Movies and Awards

Jim Gianopulos and Jeffrey Katzenberg

"The passions and emotions in the movie business have always been pretty intense, and that’s probably only gotten greater. Today the stakes seem to be so high, and so it really creates a tremendous amount of pressure on everybody involved," says DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg when sharing about what surprised him most about becoming a top film executive. Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos is pictured at left.

Rob Friedman and Rob Moore

Lionsgate Motion Picture Group co-chairman Rob Friedman (left) shares, "As a kid, I lived in an extraordinarily small town, and the film that I remember most vividly is The Ten Commandments. We got out of school, and we went and watched it." While Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore (right) says, "See, mine is The Godfather, so Jeffrey [Katzenberg] is right: Jim [Gianopulos] and I, at least, are on the same page. Mine actually was the first Godfather.

Awards Season Roundtable Series

Says Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker: “I think for a lot of us, when we were kids, the movies provided something for us. Maybe we didn’t like ourselves so much, we found life a little boring, and these films kind of enlarged us and made us into bigger people.”

Donna Langley

Universal co-chairman Donna Langley on being responsible to stockholders: "The best moment is when you have a film that exceeds your expectations. We’ve have had a couple along the way. Mamma Mia! was a great moment in the company’s history. It is the company’s most profitable film [$610 million worldwide gross on a $52 million budget], and it was a complete surprise. I mean, it went from being a, 'Oh, maybe it will work internationally in Sweden,' to being a huge worldwide hit. And then, of course, this year with Ted. The single worst moment is the allaround failure of any movie. This year, to air my dirty laundry, it’s no secret that it was Battleship."

What Awards Mean to Movie Moguls

"Here’s the thing: The Academy Awards, as far as the nominations are concerned, they’ve had a lot of integrity. They don’t pay attention to commerce and so forth. Yes, there are many years when the best film doesn’t win, but it’s almost irrelevant. To be in that room means so much when you have to choose between five and 10 high-quality films. Someone’s going to be left out. Sometimes it’s a moment in time, and that moment in time is the only time that particular movie would win. If you look at the history of the Academy Awards, you can see when those instances occurred," says Barker.

Rob Moore

Says Moore: "With us, Paranormal Activity came out of nowhere. It was a movie that we had owned for several years and talked about whether to release or not, or to remake it. So there are times when you don’t really know, but then you capture something. And then there are other times when you put all this time, energy and investment into something and nobody cares. That’s when it’s really hard."

The Executive Roundtable

When talking about the industry's future, Katzenberg says: "They haven’t even begun. I think that 10 years from now, almost everything changes. All the stakeholders are going to be rearranged. Movies are only growing in their popularity, and I think that the power of this is going to more than just transform the consumption of movies -- it’s going to revolutionize them. Today, about 100 million people will see a movie and pay $10 on a blended basis. Ten years from now, 2 billion people will pay $1.50. Some people will watch it for 65 cents on this [holds up cell phone], some will watch it for $2 on a TV screen, some will go to state-of-the-art theaters where you’ll have a meal and a great experience there. They’ll pay $50. But it all changes. Now I don’t know if that’s 10 years or 15 years, but it’s coming."

In Another Lifetime

If these top executives weren't doing business in Hollywood, they'd be an artist (Barker), a sports announcer (Moore), marine biologist (Friedman), hotel property developer (Langley), musician (Gianopulos) or fireman (Katzenberg).