Sid Ganis: My Life in Hollywood with Lucas, Coppola, and Spielberg

Episode Summary

Take a trip through time with Sid Ganis as he shares how a couple of rejection letters shaped his amazing and long career as a motion picture executive and producer. Movie buffs will revel in his stories about working closely with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola, what happens off-camera during awards shows, and how Hollywood is evolving into a more socially conscious industry.  

Syd Finkelstein

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life. 

Sid Ganis

Marketing, publicity, distribution, production – Sid Ganis has seemingly done it all. He got his start at 20th Century-Fox in New York City in the early 1960s, and after stints at Fox, Columbia, and Seven Arts he became Senior Vice President at Lucasfilm in 1979, and worked with George Lucas in marketing such blockbusters as “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” In the 1980s he segued to prexy at Paramount where he oversaw such hits as “Top Gun” “Fatal Attraction” and “Ghost.” From 1992 to 1996, he returned to Columbia as Vice Chairman and President of worldwide marketing for Columbia/Tristar, and then in 1996 founded his own company, Out of the Blue Entertainment. With wife Nancy as a partner, and in association with Adam Sandler, he produced “Big Daddy,” “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,” “Mr. Deeds,” and “Akeelah and the Bee”.

Sid has had a distinguished career in Hollywood as an executive at major studios including Sony Pictures, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros., and Paramount. He served on the board of directors of Marvel Entertainment until its sale to Disney in 2009. During that time, Marvel developed Spider-Man, Iron Man, and The Avengers, among other films. He has served on the boards of FIND (Film Independent) and the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive. He currently serves as co-chairman of the New York Chinese Film Festival.

Sid is known throughout the industry as the former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a prestigious position he held for four consecutive years. He has led the development of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is the world's premier museum devoted to exploring and curating the history and future of the moving image. He was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2013 Gabby Awards.

Insights from this episode:

• How luck and learning allowed Sid to break into the entertainment industry and continued to help him create a long and distinguished career as a movie executive.
• Details on working with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and others on blockbuster movies and what new directors Sid is impressed by.
• Benefits of advancing technology in the movie industry and how streaming platforms affect the ways movies are made.
• Secrets of what it is actually like to be friends with the Hollywood elite and how they really live.
• Details on how Hollywood, movies, and personal responsibility have evolved over the last several decades.

Quotes from the show:

• Syd’s take on Sid’s first job: “You were there and you had a good time, but you were learning. It was all about learning.” – Syd Finkelstein [12:06]
• Sid’s thoughts on Steven Spielberg: “He’s a consummate artist and he knows the art of film backward and forward, knows how to do it in such an interesting and unique way movie after movie.” – Sid Ganis [20:29]
• “The myth about Hollywood is that everybody lives in some ivory tower and [they] don’t know the basics in life and that is just not true.” – Sid Ganis [20:59]
• “Successful people in the [entertainment] business are successful and people and often have the very same values as most all of us have.” – Sid Ganis [21:08]
• “I love movies and the older I get and the longer I’ve been in this business the more I absolutely understand that I love movies and why I love movies - it’s an amazing art form.” – Sid Ganis [23:02]
• What distinguishes great directors: “They do their work in epic style even if it’s a tiny, little, small movie they do it in epic style.” – Sid Ganis [25:45]
• On watching movies in a theater versus a streaming service: “Entertainment as I know it and believe that people should consume it, there’s nothing like having that collective experience about being in a space [together] and watching a film.” – Sid Ganis [28:41]
• “These movies for Netflix and Amazon and now Apple, they’re being made by some of the same talent that have been making movies and that are starring … so many great stars have moved to (streaming services).” – Syd Finkelstein [29:25]
• On evolving standards: “There’s more empathy and understanding of how other people are perceiving what, maybe, the majority considers funny.” – Syd Finkelstein [45:49]
• Sid’s advice to young Sid: “Stay curious about everything that you don’t know about and find out what’s up in the world and be a good guy and be with your fellow human beings.” – Sid Ganis [49:46]
• Further advice from Sid: “Be a good person and go after what you’re interested in and don’t be ridiculously aggressive, be wise and be confident.” – Sid Ganis [50:21]

Stay Connected:

Syd Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Sid Ganis

Facebook: Sid Ganis 

Twitter: @GanisSid

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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry (www.podcastlaundry.com)