Cast & Characters
Mark Johnson
Mark Johnson won the Best Picture Academy Award® for Barry Levinson's poignant 1988 drama Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman (Best Actor Oscar®) and Tom Cruise. One of several films Johnson made with Levinson during a twelve-year span, the movie (winner of four Oscars®) also captured a Golden Globe® as Best Picture.
Johnson is currently in post-production on My Sister’s Keeper, his second film with director Nick Cassavetes, which stars Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, and Alec Baldwin. He is executive producing the second season of AMC’s Breaking Bad, which stars Bryan Cranston, who won the 2008 Emmy® for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He is in pre-production on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third film of the Narnia franchise. He also executive produced the independent film Ballast, the directorial debut of Lance Hammer, which won the Dramatic Directing Award and Excellence in Cinematography Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Drama Competition and is currently in theaters, and the independent film Lake City, the directorial debut of Perry Moore and Hunter Hill, starring Sissy Spacek, Troy Garity, and Dave Matthews.
Johnson’s recent motion pictures include The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, both directed by Andrew Adamson; The Hunting Party, starring Richard Gere and Terrence Howard; The Notebook, a Nick Cassavetes drama based on Nicholas Sparks’ bestseller; The Wendell Baker Story, the directorial debut of filmmaking brothers Luke and Andrew Wilson; The Alamo and The Rookie, both directed by John Lee Hancock; director Bob Dolman’s films The Banger Sisters, with Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn and How To Eat Fried Worms; Brad Silberling’s drama Moonlight Mile, with Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman; Tom Shadyac’s supernatural thriller Dragonfly with Kevin Costner and Kathy Bates; Levinson’s Irish satire, An Everlasting Piece; Robert Zemeckis’ spooky thriller What Lies Beneath, starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer; the hit comedy Galaxy Quest, with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver; and My Dog Skip, the acclaimed family drama (co-produced with John Lee Hancock) starring Frankie Muniz, Diane Lane and Kevin Bacon.
Born in Maryland, Johnson spent ten years of his youth in Spain. He earned his undergraduate degree in drama from the University of Virginia and his M.A. in Film Scholarship from the University of Iowa. From there, he moved to New York and entered the Director's Guild Assistant Director Training Program.
In his successful partnership with Barry Levinson, Johnson produced all of the writer-director's films from 1982-1994. In addition to Rain Man, their diverse slate of acclaimed features includes Good Morning, Vietnam, The Natural, Tin Men, Toys, Young Sherlock Holmes, Avalon, Diner (their 1982 debut project, for which Levinson earned an Oscar® nomination for his screenplay), and Bugsy, nominated for ten Academy Awards® including Best Picture and Best Director. Bugsy also captured a Best Picture Golden Globe Award®.
In 1994, Johnson established his own independent production company and won the Los Angeles Film Critics New Generation Award for his very first effort, A Little Princess, directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Johnson, under his new banner, also produced the Drew Barrymore comedy Home Fries which was directed by Vince Gilligan, and the dramatic thriller Donnie Brasco, starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. He served as executive producer for CBS's L.A. Doctors and Falcone, Love Monkey and the hit drama The Guardian.
Additionally, Johnson has either presented or executive produced Shooter starring Mark Wahlberg, Luis Llosa's directorial debut, Sniper, Tim Robbins' directorial debut, Bob Roberts, Steven Soderbergh's Kafka, Robert Redford's Oscar®-nominated Quiz Show and Journey of Hope, winner of the 1990 Foreign Language Film Oscar®. Johnson also serves as the Chair of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Foreign Language Film Award Committee and as a Governor for the Producers' Branch.
