He’s on Fire

He sort of got a late start out of the gate; when Lorenzo di Bonaventura decided to leap on the movie-making horse, he was 30 years old. He may as well have decided to become a super model, because by film-world standards, a start at the ripe age of 30 is near unfathomable. However, if you’ve stuck around to read the credits of any major blockbusters—Transformers and Salt to name a few, or The Matrix and Harry Potter, which he oversaw as a studio executive—you would have a pretty good idea how things are playing out for him. And while most would liken this against-the-odds success story to a stroke of luck, most don’t know di Bonaventura. A look at the roles he’s played in life best tells his story. And… action!

THE SCHOLAR

Training Days Molding The Mind

“[When working on a project] I look at what I’m seeing and ask why this is happening now and why it will resonate with an audience member. Training gave me that.” By training, di Bonaventura isn’t referring to hours spent hauling tires across fields, but rather scholarly, quality times at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business. It was this intellectual training that taught the producer to look behind the scenes and ask important questions like, “Why is this reflective of the times?” He acquired the skills that guided the kinds of decisions to land hundreds of green-lit productions throughout his career. Many of which, in fact, explore issues that strike a chord in the human psyche. The first film he greenlit as a studio executive, Falling Down, explored the way that people are cast aside by society and the trauma that ensues. Di Bonaventura , of course, always finds the way to make the issues entertaining. Today, he continues to explore such issues. RED (Retired Extremely Dangerous) is among the latest of similar projects where he approaches how society discards people from a comedic standpoint, making the world aware of what we’re tossing aside when we give up on those with a lot to offer.

From entrepreneurial attempts at start-up businesses to stints on Wall Street, Lorenzo found that the only thing consistently fueling his professional prowess was an insatiable thirst for entertainment and excitement—a thirst he attempted to quench with river water.  In 1980 di Bonaventura turned to buddies to start a river-rafting company. “I’m an outdoorsman; nature soothes my soul.” He took 10 inner-city boys from Harlem, ages 14 to 16, on a rafting trip as they traveled to Maine to stop the river dam. At the time, Lorenzo and company were collaborating with television program, American Sportsman, to chronicle the trip. Lorenzo remembers their first night: “We put the boys in their tents and once it got dark, pandemonia broke out… they’d never seen dark. There are always street lights in Harlem.” This was perhaps one of the greatest lessons for di Bonaventura who today stresses that everyone has to start somewhere.  Di Bonaventura took the second course of his academia to the streets—Wall Street that is—which would similarly mold the way he’d approach professional life.

THE BUSINESSMAN

Starting From Scratch Climbing The Ladder

“I say volunteer for any job you can get, because it will lead to something else.” With a strong background under his belt, di Bonaventura started on the business side of things. That was fine as he was only just beginning to realize that the film industry was the only trade that excited him, and as his contemporaries were much younger, the odds were against him anyway. It didn’t take long, however, for him to shake things up.

Shortly after joining the team at Columbia pictures, changes were made (“heads were fired”), and the adjustments took him to the distribution side where he got involved in marketing. Under the regime of Dawn Steel, the first woman ever to run a major U.S. motion picture studio, di Bonaventura continued his steady, upward growth. Steel saw it in him. “She offered me a chief-of-staff position, but I wasn’t sophisticated enough [I thought], so I turned it down,” he says. Luckily for him, Steel persisted, and so he took off on the next leg of his journey. More turmoil within the studio led to more opportunities for our star, but the aspiration to be in a straight creative position was bubbling inside him like the raging river waters he once navigated. And like the heroine of one of his films, Dawn came to the rescue. A call to Lucy Fisher at Warner Brothers resulted in another leap, and one that after five and a half years under her direction ended with a presidential position. Great for some, of course, but when you’re Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the next adventure is always on the horizon.

In 2003, he formed a production company, di Bonaventura Pictures, based at Paramount Pictures; one that’s produced 12 movies to date, including Transformers, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, Shooter, and G.I. Joe: Rise Of The Cobra. Most recently, di Bonaventura produced Salt for Sony Pictures. The spy thriller he explains, “meets its expectations for audiences through the lead—Angelina Jolie’s conviction, acting, and training. She was as lethal as Arnold.”

And really, that’s what it’s all about for him: meeting audience’s expectations. It’s a task that has become increasingly difficult in a world of fast, real time information.

THE MAGICIAN

Special Tactics The Element of Surprise

“People forget that entertainment is about the surprise.” Today’s public is well-informed, but di Bonaventura says social networks aren’t entirely responsible for the difficulty that comes with making a film that feels unique. “Before social media, audiences were already far more educated. They had such an incredible knowledge of film; how do you find something new to surprise everyone?” Just as surely as he knew the question, he had the answer. Approaching the process with veracity is key. “[You must] consume as much media as your audience. Staying current requires more work and multiple examinations of good ideas.”

Could it be that the ideas are running out? Not so. He likens the issue to a business that needs to go back to challenging the norm. “The industry is not willing enough to dare,” he says. “In my world, I want to push that.” The proof is in the proverbial pudding. As a studio executive di Bonaventura has overseen such envelope pushers like The Matrix, Training Day, and The Perfect storm. Today, as a producer, he has enlisted the talents of directors such as Michael Bay to use new mediums to trudge ahead. “If you’re not moving forward, you’re getting stale.” And he won’t be stale. Marrying story telling with modern technology, Bay is employing 3D technology to take audiences to new horizons in Transformers 3. “Pushing boundaries means exciting entertainment and continual intellect, and Michael may be the best director of his generation in bridging the two to create a great story,” di Bonaventura says.

The trick to his continued relevancy comes by way of his basic rule: “There are two things to remember: the age and experience of today paired with what I wanted when I was 18. If we’re able to keep in touch with our younger selves, we can connect with younger audiences.”  In fact, Lorenzo has a younger audience of his own, and as it turns out, they’re tough critics.

THE FAMILY MAN

Private Audience Personal Treasures

“I want to get to see as much of my kids as possible,” is a pleasantly warm response to the inquiry of his future trajectory, one that was quite similar to his response about the question of his biggest success: “Marrying my wife.” The di Bonaventuras make the concerted effort to spend significant time together whenever possible. Often that means bouncing ideas off of the children, and where the common reaction is, “Dad, that sucks!” The critiquing has less to do with the children’s aptitude for selecting the next blockbuster and more with a personal goal to not let professional life interrupt family life. He brings his crew on the road, or vise versa. “I flew home every weekend during the filming of Salt,” he recalls. “It’s about dedication to family.”

And while di Bonaventura enjoys making films that his children can relate to, there are movies, he stresses, they won’t see for a while. But he’s left such an indelible mark on the industry, that they, and their children, and their children’s children will all enjoy the work of the legendary Lorenzo di Bonaventura for eternity.