Roy Lee | |
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 Lee at the 2017San Diego Comic-Con | |
| Born | (1969-03-23)March 23, 1969 (age 56) Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Film producer |
| Years active | 2002–present |
Roy Lee (born March 23, 1969) is an American film and television producer. His production company,Vertigo Entertainment, has afirst-look deal withLionsgate.
Lee was born in 1969 atWyckoff Heights Hospital inBrooklyn, New York, to Korean parents. His father, a doctor, and his mother, had been in theUnited States for just three years and were still acclimating. Lee's mother, a devoutChristian, nurtured hopes that he would become aminister.[1]
During his undergraduate studies atGeorge Washington University, Lee interned at the law firmFried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. After graduating GWU, Lee attendedlaw school atAmerican UniversityWashington College of Law where he prepared for a career incorporate law.
In 1996, after graduating law school at American University and working at Fried Frank for eight months, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a "tracker" at a production company called Alphaville. Trackers monitor spec material and dealmaking. At the time, trackers shared information over the phone, constantly updating each other in an endless cycle of calls.
One of Lee's "tracker" friends,Polly Cohen Johnsen, had been updating the story department at Jersey Films and had the idea to put their tracking group online. Lee joined forces with Johnsen and Glenn Gregory of Propaganda Films to convert their daily phone calls into an online tracking group. In 1997 Lee set up an Internet bulletin board called Tracker for twenty of his friends, who rated scripts and posted pertinent tracker information for each.
Within six months, Lee had established twenty-five online groups for other trackers at production companies and studios in Hollywood. Since he was the only member who belonged to every group, he had the best information. Lee's project changed thespec script market forever. While spec scripts and pitches continued to sell, weaker material was dismissed more quickly, often within a single day, to the frustration of many agents. Online tracking accelerated the market, brought more honesty, allowed development execs to sift for material more effectively and put more pressure on agents and producers to represent better material.[1]
In 1999, Lee went to work withBenderSpink, a talent-management company owned by two of his friends,Chris Bender and JC Spink. He was charged with finding Internet content: short films that would play on PCs.[1] In this same year, Ed Kashiba, Sean Connolly and Lee developed the company Scriptshark.com, an online method for novice screenwriters to have their scripts assessed and potentially marketed. Scriptshark eventually sold toThe New York Times and closed in 2016.
In the fall of 2001, after setting up film projects at all the major studios, Lee left BenderSpink and joined Doug Davison to createVertigo Entertainment. When working on a project together, Lee did the selling and Davison handled the follow-up work. Lee noted that in the beginning, the hardest thing was making contacts abroad.[1]
Lee's approach to making deals involved explaining to Asian distributors that their films would probably not sell in America because of their subtitles and that they would make more money by selling remake rights. Then he assured the rights holder that he would protect them by representing them for free (the American studio would pay his fee when the film was made). Once Lee had secured the right to negotiate for an Asian company, he told the studios to regard the film as a script that someone had taken the trouble to film, and that had been tested and proved a hit in its home country.[1]
Lee earned his first motion picture producing credit onGore Verbinski's 2002 blockbusterThe Ring. He went on to produce the 2004 haunted house horror filmThe Grudge, which starredSarah Michelle Gellar and was based on the 2002 Japanese filmJu-on: The Grudge, which was directed byTakashi Shimizu. The box office hit held the record for biggest horror opening weekend following its October 2004 release.
The Grudge 2 was released in October 2006, starringAmber Tamblyn and Gellar, and directed by Shimizu. It topped the box office at $22 million on its opening weekend. Also in October 2006,The Departed, a crime thriller fromWarner Bros. Pictures, directed byMartin Scorsese and starringLeonardo DiCaprio,Matt Damon andJack Nicholson, was released, grossing $27 million in its opening weekend. It was Scorsese's biggest opening ever.The Departed later went on to win Best Picture at the79th Academy Awards.
He worked as executive producer of the Uruguay short filmAtaque de pánico! alongside Doug Davison.[2]
Producer
Executive producer
Co-producer
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