Filmography
Over the years, Rudin has produced a diverse array of films, ranging from widely distributed arthouse fare to mainstream Hollywood features. He has been responsible for films by Jack Hofsiss (I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can starring Jill Clayburgh); John Schlesinger (Pacific Heights starring Melanie Griffith, Michael Keaton and Matthew Modine); Mike Nichols (Regarding Henry starring Harrison Ford and Annette Bening); and first-time directors Jodie Foster (Little Man Tate starring Foster, Diane Wiest and Adam Hann-Byrd); and Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family starring Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci). Sonnenfeld's The Addams Family became a major franchise, and Emile Ardolino's hit Sister Act with Whoopi Goldberg and Maggie Smith spawned a sequel.
Rudin had a string of box-office failures in the early nineties, highlighted by White Sands (1992, with Willem Dafoe and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), Jennifer 8 (1992, with Andy García and Uma Thurman) and Life with Mikey (1993). All three movies struggled among that year's competitive summer slate. However, Rudin was soon redeemed by the star-studded legal thriller The Firm (1993), which was his most profitable movie to date with a $270,248,367 worldwide gross, and Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), which garnered critical acclaim. Surprisingly, shortly before Bobby Fischer was released, Fischer himself, the renowned young chess prodigy, popped out of hiding in Yugoslavia after 20 years in seclusion. At the time, Rudin was quoted by Army Archerd of Variety as saying, "I'm not concerned . It can only be good, to help publicize the picture... He is never seen in the movie—he never appears."
Subsequently, Rudin oversaw production of the romantic comedy I.Q. (1994), starring Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins; the Paul Newman film Nobody's Fool (1994); the dark horse hit Clueless (1995), a breakout movie for Alicia Silverstone; and Sydney Pollack's remake, Sabrina (1995). In 1996, he produced The First Wives Club, a hit comedy starring Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton. Keaton was also in Albert Brooks' Mother (1996, with Debbie Reynolds) and alongside Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro in Marvin's Room (1996), a film that also featured a young Leonardo DiCaprio playing an emotionally disturbed boy. Both were produced by Rudin. Later in '96, Rudin teamed with producer Brian Grazer on Ron Howard's Ransom, which starred Mel Gibson, Rene Russo and Gary Sinise. Grazer had to get an exemption from his deal at Universal Pictures to join Rudin on that project, which has been the only movie the two powerhouse producers have worked on together.
Along with Robert Redford, Rudin also co-produced Steven Zaillian's adaptation of Jonathan Harr's non-fiction book A Civil Action (1998), starring John Travolta and Robert Duvall. In the movie, the two stars play opposing lawyers, who represent the residents of Woburn, Mass., on the one hand, and the multi-million dollar corporations, Beatrice Foods and Grace Industries, on the other. The film dramatizes events of the lawsuit, which produced the largest environmental out-of-court settlement in Massachusetts history, at a total of $69.4 million.
Through the nineties, Rudin was a prolific producer, putting together movies that include the following: In & Out (1997), starring Kevin Kline; the hit movie, The Truman Show (1998), with Jim Carrey; the Matt Stone and Trey Parker-developed movies, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999) and Team America: World Police (2004); Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead (1999); Sleepy Hollow (1999), with Johnny Depp; Wonder Boys (2000), starring Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire, based on the award-winning novel by Michael Chabon; Shaft (2000), the remake with Samuel L. Jackson; the hit comedy, Zoolander (2001), starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson; three of Wes Anderson's arthouse, ensemble-cast hits The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), and The Darjeeling Limited (2007); the well-received Jack Black starrer School of Rock (2003); Orange County (2002) written by School of Rock writer, Mike White; The Manchurian Candidate (2004) with Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber; Richard Eyre's Iris (2001), starring Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent, the latter of whom won an Oscar for his supporting role in the film; The Stepford Wives (2004), starring Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Glenn Close, Christopher Walken and Bette Middler; M. Night Shyamalan's The Village (2004), with Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver; David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees (2004), with Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Dustin Hoffman, Mark Wahlberg and Naomi Watts ; Mike Nichols' Closer (2004), starring Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts; Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), starring Jim Carey, Jude Law and Meryl Streep (2004); Freedomland (2006), with Samuel L. Jackson; and Failure to Launch (2006), starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey; among many others.
His most recent films include 2006's Notes on a Scandal, starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench and based on the best-selling book What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal; Venus, starring Peter O'Toole; and The Queen, starring Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, a role that won her an Oscar for Best Actress. O'Toole and Dench were also nominated for Oscars in the 2006–2007 season for their leading roles in their respective films. Only Mirren won. Notes on a Scandal received three other Oscar nominations: Blanchett for supporting role, Patrick Marber for Best Adapted Screenplay and Philip Glass Academy Award for Best Original Score. Most notably, The Queen was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, along with Stephen Frears for Best Director, and Peter Morgan for Best Original Screenplay. He will possibly take part in Paramount Pictures' 2009 musical remake of Footloose starring Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, and Dennis Quaid.
In 2007, Rudin produced Margot at the Wedding, a tragicomedy about a dysfunctional family starring Nicole Kidman, Jack Black and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited.
Rudin developed adaptations of the novels The Corrections, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and Blood Meridian. He recently produced the following projects, among many others: The Other Boleyn Girl, based on the best-selling novel of the same name and starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana; Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret, with Anna Paquin; Wes Anderson's picture, Fantastic Mr. Fox based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name and starring George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, and Jason Schwartzman; The David Fincher-directed screenplay by Aaron Sorkin about the formation of Facebook, The Social Network, and in development is David Gordon Green's The Goat; an untitled Alan Ball project.
Rudin is also currently in the early production stages of an adaptation of the upcoming Ben Mezrich book Sex on the Moon, which follows the true story of NASA interns Thad Roberts and Tiffany Fowler as they scheme to steal and make love among a collection of lunar rocks locked away in the Houston Space Center in 2002. The book is set for publishing in February 2011.
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