BIO: NEIL RUSSELL
Neil Russell is President of Site 85 Productions, Inc. a company engaged in the creation and acquisition of intellectual properties for entertainment media. A former executive with Paramount, Columbia and MGM/UA, he formed his first company, Horizon Entertainment, which subsequently merged with Orbis Communications before it was acquired by Carolco Pictures.
Carolco, one of the most successful independent motion picture companies ever created, was responsible for such hits as the
Rambo films,
Terminator 2,
Total Recall,
Red Heat,
Iron Eagle II and III,
Cliffhanger,
Universal Soldier and more. Neil was involved in all facets of the company’s business. He also acquired more than 100 motion pictures for Carolco, including
Platoon,
Terminator and
The Last Emperor and participated in the acquisitions of the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, Artisan Entertainment, and the Vista Organization. As founder and President of Carolco Television Productions (CTP), he oversaw seven production companies that produced 31 high-profile television motion pictures, several of which were released theatrically in international markets.
In 1993, Neil purchased the assets of the former CTP and began aggressively acquiring intellectual property rights under his own banner. Since then, producing partnerships or licensing arrangements of rights owned or controlled by Neil have been made with Jerry Bruckheimer Films, ABC/Touchstone Television, MGM, Mace Neufeld Productions, Activision, Simon & Schuster, Heyday Films, Scott Free Productions, Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment, Tribune Entertainment, FP Productions, the Hallmark Channel, Hyde Park Entertainment, F/X Networks and others.
Neil has a 2-book deal with HarperCollins to publish his first novel,
City of War, an international thriller that will be released worldwide in March, 2010. Its first sequel,
Wildcase, will follow, and HarperCollins has taken an option for a third installment of the series.
He also authored the 2001 book,
Can I Still Kiss You?: Answering Your Children’s Questions about Cancer, which grew out of his two successful battles with the disease.
In motion pictures and television, Neil is represented by Creative Artists Agency (CAA), and in publishing, by Lisa Erbach Vance of the Aaron Priest Literary Agency. He is a member of the Writer’s Guild of America, West; The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, BMI, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and other entertainment industry and publishing organizations.
A graduate of Parsons College, he is a member of the Naval War College Foundation at Newport, RI. and a former member of the board of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Washington, DC. He also sits on the board of New Leaf Brands, Inc., a publicly-traded beverage company.
He is active in several charities and is especially proud to have been made an honorary member of the Hmong community of Laos for his fundraising efforts to airlift Hmong children to the United States to be fitted with prostheses for limbs lost to mines.
NEIL'S BLOG
Coming soon
