Arnon Milchan: Malibu’s Movie Mogul and International Man of Mystery

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Local Arnon Milchan will receive the Malibu Film Society’s Malibu Filmmaker Award for his work on movies, including “L.A. Confidential.”

The “most interesting man in the world” is not the one you’ve seen in the beer commercials. In real life, he just might be Malibu resident, billionaire businessman, movie mogul and former Israeli intelligence operative Arnon Milchan, who will be honored by the Malibu Film Society on May 9 for producing many of Hollywood’s most memorable films.

Prior to his film career, Milchan studied economics at City of London College in the ’60s and, after, returned to Israel and transformed his family’s bankrupt fertilizer company into a $125 million diversified business. During this time, he was personally recruited by Israel’s Shimon Peres (who later became President) to work on the nation’s secret national defense efforts.

After decades of speculation and the publication of an unauthorized book in 2011, “Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan,” Milchan admitted on Israeli TV in 2013 that he’d been an intelligence operative and supported Israel’s secret nuclear weapons project. At one time, he operated 30 companies in 17 countries and brokered deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the program. 

When asked by The Malibu Times if the book was accurate, he said, “They got 70% right and about 70% of what I did is not in there … I’ll do anything for Israel.”

Meanwhile, Milchan first came to L.A. in 1982 with the idea of purchasing 20th Century Fox and hiring Warren Beatty to run it. But, “No one took me seriously,” Milchan said, so he ended up forming his own company. 

Today, his company, New Regency, generally partners with Fox.

“Fox is our distributor. We’re exclusive with Fox about 80% of the time, but we have exceptions,” Milchan said. “Fox has first crack at whatever we develop ourselves. We’re a studio within a studio.”

Under the banner of his studio, New Regency, Milchan has made more than 130 feature-length films throughout the past 34 years. 

New Regency has had a successful couple of years, thanks to the box office success of “Gone Girl” and best picture Oscar wins for “Birdman” and “12 Years a Slave.” Milchan hopes to continue the run with some of the 12 films he currently has in production. 

“We just finished a very big movie with Leonardo DiCaprio – ‘The Revenant’ – with the same director as ‘Birdman,’” Milchan said in an interview. “If we’re lucky, it’ll be released by Christmas in order to qualify for the Oscars, and it’ll be a big, big release. We also have two movies with Brad Pitt back-to-back, and one with Brad Cooper and Emma Stone.”

Milchan’s very first film remains one of his favorites – the nearly four-hour long “Once Upon a Time in America (1984).”

“It was the most ambitious film of its time,” he said. The studio went on to make many well-known films, including “War of the Roses,” “Pretty Woman,” “Fight Club,” “L.A. Confidential” and “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”

Milchan gets involved in every film project reading scripts, making important casting decisions and choosing the director.

“I follow the director,” Milchan said. “I know certain directors will deliver. Like with ‘L.A. Confidential,’ we had nine Oscar nominations, and it was because of the director. There’s no great movie without a great director.”

He makes it a practice to go on location “at least twice at the beginning, and later if there are problems. They know to call me. If it goes smoothly, like ‘Gone Girl,’ then I go just at the beginning and the end.”

He said the secret to managing so many films in production is to “surround yourself with a really good team and delegate. I think we have one of the best teams in town.”

And Milchan doesn’t necessarily play it safe when choosing a film project.

“I’d rather go down in flames and go for the best. Choosing the movie in the middle that’s just a product, just generic, is a compromise and not very exciting,” Milchan said.

Milchan will be honored by the Malibu Film Society with a cocktail reception and dinner on Sat., May 9 at 6:30 p.m. The award will be personally presented by fellow producer Brett Ratner, followed by a screening of one of Milchan’s award-winning movies — “L.A. Confidential.” 

Tickets are available at malibufilmsociety.org and must be purchased by Monday, May 4.