Walter Parkes

Walter F. Parkes (born April 15, 1951) is an American producer, screenwriter, and media executive. The producer of more than 50 films, including the Men in Black series and Minority Report, he is the co-founder and co-chairman of Dreamscape Immersive. Parkes and his wife and business partner, producer Laurie MacDonald, helped to build DreamWorks, with Parkes the head of its motion picture division, and the two later moved to Amblin Entertainment, where Parkes served as president. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards, receiving his first nomination as the director/ producer of the 1975 documentary The California Reich; his second for co-writing the original screenplay for WarGames; and his third as a producer of Awakenings. Parkes and MacDonald created the Parkes + Macdonald production company (P+M, P+M Image Nation) in 2010, collaborating on the productions of a number of films, including films that Amblin has released. Parkes was born in Bakersfield, California. He attended Yale University, and graduated cum laude in 1973. WarGames, co-written by Parkes with Lawrence Lasker and Walon Green, garnered a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination. Parkes and Lasker co-produced several films, including Sneakers and Awakenings, a Best Picture Oscar nominee in 1990. Other films Parkes produced or on which he served as executive producer include, the Men in Black series, The Kite Runner, Golden Globe-winning Sweeney Todd, Dinner for Schmucks, Gladiator, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Ring, The Terminal, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Road to Perdition, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Deep Impact, Twister, The Legend of Zorro and Amistad. In 1994, Parkes was named President of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and later that year, he and his wife and business partner Laurie MacDonald were tapped to help create the DreamWorks SKG motion picture studio. As the studio's president, Parkes, in partnership with MacDonald, oversaw development and production of all DreamWorks' film projects, including three consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners: American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind — the latter two in partnership with Universal Studios.