8. Mary Parent

Parent had a perfectly good producing deal on the Universal lot, but when the opportunity to overhaul one of Hollywood's most storied studios came up, she jumped. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," she says of her job spearheading MGM's evolution from a distribution-driven company to a studio that will generate its own pics. Her strong eye for material and talent relations from her years as a hitmaker at Universal should put her in good stead. Already 30-plus projects are in development, including the Denzel Washington starrer "The Matarese Circle" and a remake of "RoboCop." "I don't shy away from the workload," she says, "but it's intense." That said, her judgment isn't always perfect: Frustrated with her commute from Brentwood to Universal City, she bought a house in Los Feliz last December. Then her job changed. "Talk about bad timing! Now I've got at least a 45-minute drive in the opposite direction."