Jon Landau, the Oscar-winning producer who worked with director James Cameron on three of cinema’s greatest hits of all time, ‘Titanic’, ‘Avatar’ and ‘Avatar: Waterborne’, has died aged 63 age. Disney Entertainment co-president Alan Bergman announced it from Los Angeles, without giving the cause of death.
“Jon was a visionary whose extraordinary talent and passion brought to life some of the most unforgettable stories on the big screen, but he was an even better person who inspired everyone around him,” Bergman wrote in a statement.
Landau contributed to the history of the seventh art when he released ‘Titanic’ in 1997 with a young Leonardo DiCaprio and an almost unknown Kate Winslet: that costumed romantic drama was the first film to sell tickets worldwide for a billion dollars. At the end of its time in theaters, it earned 2.3 billion dollars. In 2009, Landau and Cameron broke that record by tackling ‘Avatar’. The sci-fi epic, shot and screened with revolutionary 3D technology, grossed 2 billion and 900 million dollars and still holds the record for the highest-grossing film in history.
Landau was born in New York on July 23, 1960, and was the son of film producers Ely and Edie Landau. He took his first steps on set in the 1980s as a production manager, until he was a producer for Cameron on the epic and very expensive film about the Titanic disaster, which earned 14 nominations and 11 wins at the 70th edition of the Oscars. “I can’t act, I can’t compose and I can’t do visual effects. I think that’s why I produce,” joked Landau as he accepted the Best Picture statuette with Cameron on his side. Since then, the collaboration between the two continued and Landau is one of the top executives of the Canadian director of Lightstorm Entertainment.
At 29, he began working as executive vice president of feature films at 20th Century Fox, where he oversaw hits such as Home Alone and its sequels, as well as Mrs. Doubtfire and True Lies, with which he began working closely with Cameron. Other unforgettable titles to our credit include performances as diverse as Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Solaris’, Disney’s 1989 hit, ‘Honey, I’ve Shrunk the Kids’ and the following year’s ‘Dick Tracy’, with Al Pacino, Madonna and of course Warren Beatty as the main detective (and behind the camera). He had a wife.
Julie Landau, and two children, Jamie and Jodie.
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