Production
Michael Phillips
Born 1943-06-29 · Brooklyn, New York, USA
Michael Phillips (born June 29, 1943) is an American film producer. Phillips was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. His mother, Shirley, was a schoolteacher and housewife; his father, Larry, was a garment manufacturer. They later became dealers in ancient Asian art. Phillips received a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College and a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law. After being admitted to the New York Bar in 1969, he worked as a securities analyst on Wall Street. In 1971, he and his wife moved to Malibu, California and produced their first film, Steelyard Blues, starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. In 1972, Phillips along with his then-wife, Julia Phillips, and producer Tony Bill financed the development of the screenplay, The Sting for $3,500 in total. In 1973, the film received the Academy Award for Best Picture. Michael and Julia were the first husband-and-wife team to win the Best Picture award. The couple then produced Taxi Driver (which would go on to win the Palme D'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival) and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In 1984, his production company, Mercury Entertainment, went public with the intention to capitalize on his prior successes. Mercury planned to produce three to five films a year in the $10-million range with operating and development costs to be paid by ABC Motion Pictures while production financing was provided by the major studios. The 1984 film The Flamingo Kid and the 1991 film Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead were not as successful as hoped and in 1992, Philips offered to take the company private repurchasing outstanding stock at seven cents on the dollar. In 1986, he teamed up with Michael Douglas to launch a new company to produce independently financed features, and has option to buy Douglas' company Big Stick Inc. In 2006, Mercury Entertainment was merged with Debmar Studios to form Debmar-Mercury (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Lions Gate Entertainment). The Sting was inducted into the Producers Guild of America's Hall of Fame, granting each of its producers a Golden Laurel Award. In June 2007, Taxi Driver was ranked as the 52nd-best American feature film of all time by the American Film Institute. In December 2007, Close Encounters was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Phillips, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting credits
8.1Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.
Taxi Driver
1976
7.1The chronicle of the mind-blowing journey that was Hollywood during the seventies; the true and gripping story of the last golden age of American cinema, an exalted celebration of creativity and experimentation; but also of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll: a turbulent and dark tale of ambition, envy, betrayal, hatred and self-destruction.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood
2003
7.5A documentary on the life and career of one of the most influential film directors of all time, Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg
2017
NRRecorded at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival at the Beacon Theatre
Taxi Driver: 40th Anniversary Cast Q&A
2016
5.0Nice interview with producer Michael Phillips who discusses his early career and how he got involved with the production of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976)
Producing 'Taxi Driver'
2007
Behind the camera
8.1Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.
Taxi Driver
1976
7.4After an encounter with UFOs, an electricity linesman feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1977
8.0A novice con man teams up with an acknowledged master to avenge the murder of a mutual friend by pulling off the ultimate big con and swindling a fortune from a big-time mobster.
The Sting
1973
6.3Two siblings begin to develop special talents after they find a mysterious box of toys, and soon their parents and even their teacher are drawn into a strange new world – and find a task ahead of them that is far more important than any of them could imagine.
The Last Mimzy
2007
6.0Brooklyn teenager Jeffrey Willis, thoroughly unhappy with his modest homestead, embraces the other-world aspects of his summer job at the posh Flamingo Club. He spurns his father in favor of the patronage of smooth-talking Phil Brody and is seduced by the ample bikini charms of club member Carla Samson. But thanks to a couple of late-summer hard lessons, the teen eventually realizes that family should always come first.
The Flamingo Kid
1984
5.9Doc, who has just moved to Cannery Row, realizes that the only entertainment is the brothel. There he meets the spunky Suzy and they fall in love, giving them both a renewed chance at life.
Cannery Row
1982
4.9Emperor Spengo sees Marge Nelson and using a giant magnet, kidnaps her and her husband Dick, hoping to make Marge his before blowing up the Earth. The Emperor and other inhabitants of his planet are somewhat less than bright, and Dick begins reliving episodes of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers in order to rescue Marge, save the Earth, and restore the rightful emperor to the throne.
Mom and Dad Save the World
1992
5.3In the near-distant future, a female romance writer is planning to write her next book in a remote mountain cabin. A friend convinces her to bring along a "companion", a nearly-human android to cook and clean. She settles on a male companion named "Geoffrey." Bored with some of Geoffrey's behavior, she tinkers with his programming -- first his personality, then his sexuality. Real trouble comes when she gives his mind access to "random data."
The Companion
1994
4.5Two domestic robots fall in love and run off together.
Heartbeeps
1981
5.0A group of misfits who want to find a happier life somewhere out of society decide to leave town on a PBY flying boat. The problem is that their transport needs a lot of work before they can fly it.
Steelyard Blues
1973