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Marco Weber (born 1966, Leer, East Frisia) is a Los Angeles-based German producer and Entrepreneur responsible for a series of high-profile international productions since the mid-1990s. He is also a co-founder of Vrenetic, which he co-founded with Roland Emmerich.
After a brief spell in a steel factory, Marco Weber earned his spurs in the media industry as production manager for the German version of The Price Is Right before venturing into the production of commercials. He gave his debut as a movie producer with the documentary Annie’s Shooting.
Theatrical production being his main goal, he went to Los Angeles at the age of 25 in order to produce and finance independent movies. One year later he launched his first feature, Don't Do It , with upcoming stars such as Heather Graham and David Arquette. Together with blockbuster director Roland Emmerich ( Independence Day ) he produced the $20-million sci-fi thriller The Thirteenth Floor directed by Josef Rusnak, starring Vincent D'Onofrio and Armin Mueller-Stahl. [1]
In 1998 he founded his company Atlantic Streamline, which was to produce – among others—the heist comedy You're Dead with John Hurt und Rhys Ifans. In 2001 the flop of All the Queen's Men (directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, who went on to win the 2007 Academy Award for best foreign picture for The Counterfeiters) plunged the firm into major trouble. But one year later Weber was able to celebrate his biggest hit up until this point – the black comedy Igby Goes Down , which earned Golden Globe nominations for its actors Kieran Culkin and Susan Sarandon. Writer-director Burr Steers was honored with an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best screenplay. In the wake of this success Weber closed a first look/cofinancing deal with the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists. [2] In 2003, he signed a production deal with MGM/UA. [3]
His 2005 production of Rohtenburg created a stir in Germany at first. The movie was inspired by the true crime case of convicted cannibalistic murderer Armin Meiwes. Upon protest of the offender, who saw his personal rights violated, the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt prohibited the theatrical release that had been scheduled for March 9, 2006. [4] Three years later this ban was to be overturned by the German Federal Court. [5] Abroad the movie had already made a positive impression. At renowned film festivals like Sitges, Spain, or Puchon, South Korea, Rohtenburg had received awards for best director (Martin Weisz) and best leading actors (Thomas Kretschmann, Thomas Huber) among others. [6]
In the meantime, Weber, who kept operating from Los Angeles, had become an important player in the German movie industry. End of 2005 he and his partner Helge Sasse together with a group of German-American investors acquired a 50.1 per cent stake in the insolvent long-established distribution company Senator Entertainment AG. Thanks to a target-oriented acquisitions and production strategy Weber was able to give the company a new profile. [7] In 2007 he showed countable success with the Academy Award-nominated Pan's Labyrinth (287,905 admissions – source: German Federal Film Board/GFFB), 1408 (537,334 admissions – source: GFFB) and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof (572,906 admissions – source: GFFB). With the newly founded label Autobahn he tried to propagate innovative genre films [8] – a strategy that worked for low-budget movies like Hard Candy (77,794 admissions – source: GFFB) starring Elliot Page. By the end of 2007 Senator had nearly doubled the results of the previous year with a turnover of €68.37 million. [9]
Concurrently, Weber remained active as producer. As managing director of the American daughter company Senator Entertainment Inc., USA, he realized two high-profile independent movies – the family drama Fireflies in the Garden starring Julia Roberts, Willem Dafoe and Ryan Reynolds as well as the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Informers with Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger and Winona Ryder – both of which were sold worldwide. [10]
In the German market Senator’s movies had a tough time in 2008 – even critically acclaimed productions like The Orphanage (100,371 admissions – source: GFFB) proved a box-office disappointment. Neither did the movies “Autobahn“ series catch on in their theatrical release. It was only in spring 2009 that Weber’s acquisition The Reader starring Kate Winslet, who was to receive an Academy Award as best actress, would provide the distributor with another blockbuster. [11] 2,134,990 admissions (source: GFFB) were equivalent to the most successful movie in the company’s history since 2003.
End of 2008 Weber had already withdrawn from the board of Senator Entertainment AG in order to focus on his core business – movie production. [12] Since then he realized the thriller Unthinkable with Samuel Jackson and served as executive producer of Antoine Fuqua’s crime drama Brooklyn's Finest starring Richard Gere and Ethan Hawke.
Following his withdrawal from the board of Senator Entertainment and after his last production Unthinkable, Weber began to move his career-path away from film and towards Technology. Marco identified that large Peer-to-peer file sharing networks like BitTorrent had the potential to monetize on the 150 million users who use the sharing service..
While working with BitTorrent, Weber invented and created a unique and innovative distribution model in collaboration with BitTorrent. With this newly adopted model, BitTorrent users would help finance newly minted “BitTorrent Originals”. [13] As a result of the implementation of this business model, Chinese Cryptocurrency company “Tron”” acquired BitTorrent for US $ 140 million. [14]
In 2016, Weber founded Vrenetic with Roland Emmerich. The two had previously worked together to produce The Thirteenth Floor in 1999, where their engagement with the idea of Virtual Reality had begun. Weber acts as the company's CEO. [15] Vrenetic’s central product, Vresh, is a next-generation, mobile, social media platform for live and on-demand 360-degree video and callin. [16] [17]
Weber and Emmerich saw a gap in the accessibility of VR existing experiences and products, so they set out to make an immersive, social experience for everyone. In late 2017, Weber told a reporter, “We hope this will open up an audience that would not usually use virtual reality or 360 experiences. We have a very intensive publishing kit where you can use filters and animations to play with it in a Snapchat way, and so we hope people just discover it and have fun with it and it’s something that helps roll out virtual reality to a mass audience instead of just people who own a headset. That’s what I wish for the company". [18]
Vresh launched in January 2019 and has since made headways as a rapidly growing 360º Social Media App. [19]
In January 2020 company announced partnership with Beijing Culture Fund and expansion to China market [20]
Weber lives with his wife, Anne Caroline, and their four children in Malibu, California. Under her maiden name, Caroline Schröder, his wife was one of the stars of popular German TV series Sterne des Südens (“Stars of the South“). [21]
Selected filmography as producer [22] (unless otherwise stated)
Roland Emmerich is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is widely known for his science fiction and disaster films and has been called a "master of disaster" within the industry. His films, most of which are English-language Hollywood productions, have made more than $3 billion worldwide, including just over $1 billion in the United States, making him the country's 15th-highest-grossing director of all time.
Aaron Edward Eckhart is an American actor. Born in Cupertino, California, Eckhart moved to the United Kingdom at an early age. He began his acting career by performing in school plays, before moving to Australia for his high school senior year. He left high school without graduating, but earned a diploma through a professional education course, and then graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah, U.S., in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film.
Patrick Joseph Wilson is an American actor who is best known for playing the role of demonologist Ed Warren in the Conjuring Universe (2013–present). He began his career in 1995, starring in Broadway musicals. He is a two-time Tony Award nominee for his roles in The Full Monty (2000–2001) and Oklahoma! (2002). He co-starred in the acclaimed HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003), which he was nominated for both the Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Moon 44 is a 1990 English-language German science fiction action film from Centropolis Film Productions, directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Michael Paré and Lisa Eichhorn alongside Brian Thompson and Malcolm McDowell. The film is set on a futuristic mining site on Moon 44, where convicts and teenage technicians are partnered. An undercover agent (Paré) must discover what has happened to missing corporate shuttles.
Dean Devlin is an American screenwriter, producer, director, and actor of film and television. He is best known for his collaborations with director Roland Emmerich, and for his work on the Librarian and Leverage television franchises. He is a co-founder of the production companies Centropolis Entertainment and Electric Entertainment.
10,000 BC is a 2008 American action-adventure film directed by Roland Emmerich, starring Steven Strait and Camilla Belle. The film is set in the prehistoric era and depicts the journeys of a prehistoric tribe of mammoth hunters. The world premiere was held on February 10, 2008, at Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.
Marc Weigert is a film producer and film/TV visual effects supervisor and 2nd unit director.
Neil Mandt is an American producer of The Golden Globe Awards, director and technology entrepreneur. He started becoming involved in film and TV in the 1990s. He has written, directed, produced, and acted in many different films and TV shows. Mandt has received 10 Emmy nominations and has won 5 Emmy Awards.
The University of Television and Film Munich is a publicly funded film school in Munich, Germany. The school was established in 1966 by decree of the Bavarian government. The University of Television and Film Munich is one of Germany's most reputable film schools with about 350 students enrolled.
Centropolis Entertainment is a German-American film production company founded in 1985 as Centropolis Film Productions by German film director Roland Emmerich and American film producer Dean Devlin. As of 2001, the company is a subsidiary of Das Werk AG.
Enzo Tedeschi is an Australian producer, screenwriter, screen editor and director. Best known for producing the crowdfunded and BitTorrent released The Tunnel, Tedeschi went on to create and produce several international award-winning web series including Event Zero and Airlock, feature horror anthology A Night of Horror Volume 1, and two instalments of the Skinford franchise created by Nik Kacevski. 2017 saw the theatrical release of his directorial debut feature film Event Zero, a reboot of his award-winning 2012 web series.
2012 is a 2009 American science fiction disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. It was produced by Harald Kloser, Mark Gordon, and Larry J. Franco, and written by Kloser and Emmerich. The film stars John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Thandiwe Newton, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson. Based on the 2012 phenomenon, its plot follows geologist Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) and novelist Jackson Curtis (Cusack) as they experience an eschatological sequence of events including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, megatsunamis and a global flood, all of which were imagined by subscribers to the hypothesis.
Ng Chin Han is a Singaporean actor of stage, film and television whose career has spanned more than 20 years. Usually credited as just Chin Han, he is one of the most prolific Asian actors in Hollywood.
Marco Johann Kreuzpaintner is a German film director, executive producer and screenwriter.
Benjamin Herrmann is a German film producer and distributor.
Stonewall is a 2015 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Jon Robin Baitz, and starring Jeremy Irvine, Jonny Beauchamp, Ron Perlman, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Joey King, Caleb Landry Jones, Matt Craven, Atticus Mitchell, and Mark Camacho. Released on September 25, 2015, by Roadside Attractions, the film is set in and around the 1969 Stonewall riots, a violent clash with police that sparked the gay liberation movement in New York City. The film received generally negative reviews.
Midway is a 2019 war film about the Battle of Midway, a turning point in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The film was directed by Roland Emmerich, who also produced the film with Harald Kloser, and was written by Wes Tooke. The film stars Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, Tadanobu Asano, Darren Criss and Woody Harrelson.
Moonfall is a 2022 science fiction disaster film co-written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich. It stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Peña, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu, and Donald Sutherland. It follows two former astronauts alongside a conspiracy theorist who discover the hidden truth about Earth's moon when it suddenly leaves its orbit. Shot in Montreal on a $138–146 million budget, it is one of the most expensive independently produced films ever made.
The Magic Flute is a 2022 German musical fantasy film directed by Florian Sigl, based on the 1791 opera of the same name by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Carsten H.W. Lorenz, known professionally as Carsten Lorenz, is a German film producer. He is best known for his work as a regular collaborator of director Roland Emmerich.
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