Virginia Film Festival

Mark Johnson, Chair

Producer, Gran Via Productions

Mark Johnson is both an Oscar (Rain Man) and an Emmy (Breaking Bad) winner who has produced over forty films and television shows. Johnson produced all of the writer-director Barry Levinson’s films from 1982-1994. In addition to Rain Man, their diverse slate of acclaimed features includes Good Morning Vietnam, The Natural, Tin Men, Avalon, Diner, and Bugsy, nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director His slate of motion pictures includes The Chronicles of Narnia franchise and David Chase’s Not Fade Away. He produced Alfonso Cuaron’s A Little Princess; The Notebook, based on Nicholas Sparks’ best-selling novel; Lance Hammer’s Sundance award-winning film Ballast; the Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest; The Rookie directed by John Lee Hancock; Mike Newell’s gangster drama Donnie Brasco starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino; and Clint Eastwood’s A Perfect World starring Kevin Costner. He produced the 2017 Alexander Payne film Downsizing starring Matt Damon, as well as Simon Baker’s directorial debut Breath, an adaptation of Tim Winton’s novel of the same name.  Later this year, Focus Features will release a second collaboration with Alexander Payne, The Holdovers.

In television, he executive produced the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning drama Breaking Bad for AMC and the Peabody-winning Rectify for SundanceTV. He also executive produced Better Call Saul and Halt and Catch Fire for AMC. Currently, he is executive producing the Anne Rice series, Interview with the Vampire and Mayfair Witches. Johnson has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has served for the last nineteen years as the Chair of the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Selection Committee.