Frank Yablans (August 27, 1935 – November 27, 2014) was an American studio executive,film producer, andscreenwriter. Yablans served as an executive atParamount Pictures, including President of the studio, in the 1960s and 1970s.
Yablans entered the motion picture business in 1956, joiningWarner Bros. sales.[6] In 1959, he joinedBuena Vista as theMilwaukee sales manager where he stayed until 1966.[6] He joined Sigma III and later transitioned toFilmways after it acquired Sigma III.[6]
He became executive vice president of sales forParamount Pictures in June 1969,[6] where his marketing of the filmLove Story (1970), led to his appointment as Paramount Studios' president on May 10, 1971.[6]
As head of Paramount, he oversaw the release and marketing ofThe Godfather (1972),The Godfather Part II (1974), andChinatown (1974).[7] He also personally supervised the 100th birthday celebrations of studio founderAdolph Zukor in January 1973. Following a reorganization at Paramount in whichCharles Bluhdorn, the chairman and CEO of Gulf & Western Industries, was replaced byBarry Diller, Yablans announced his resignation as president on November 8, 1974. According to Diller, Yablans was corrupt during his time as president of Paramount, making lavish deals, squandering studio money on non-film projects such as real estate development, and acceptingbribes from people such as National Amusement headSumner Redstone, stating that he first learned of these bribes from Bluhdorn.[8]
Yablans was recruited byKirk Kerkorian to head his troubled and debt-laden film companyMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).[9] While Yablans' reorganization of MGM andUnited Artists (UA) into a single entity (as MGM/UA) served to reduce costs and overhead, the company continued to lose value, and in 1986 was purchased by Ted Turner Productions for a reported $1.25 billion.[10] He then formed Northstar Entertainment Corporation, with a partnership atProducers Sales Organization.[11] In 1986, he set up a two-year, seven-picture agreement with low-budget studioEmpire International to produce feature films.[12] In 1987, directorArthur Seidelman partnered with Yablans to produce feature films.[13]
In 2000, Yablans and partners Cindy Bond, Charlie Stuart Gay and Ron Booth founded Promenade Pictures, a production and marketing company committed to "family-friendly" entertainment. Its most ambitious project was the "Epic Stories of the Bible" series of CGI-animated features, starting withThe Ten Commandments (2007) andNoah's Ark: The New Beginning (2012).
Yablans died onThanksgiving, November 27, 2014, from natural causes at the age of 79.[14][15] He had three children – Robert Yablans (deceased), Sharon Abrams, and Edward Yablans.[15]
Steve Baker,Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham,James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda,Bob Odenkirk, Bill O'Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy,Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo,Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro,Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, and Jonas Wittenmark (2013)
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