Hollywood From Subarus to Celluloid

By Martha Smilgis/Los Angeles

The son of an auto mechanic and a former car distributor himself, James Robinson is a hands-on guy. So it was natural for him, in his new role as Hollywood's hottest independent producer, to do some fine-tuning on his $57 million movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves when he felt that the editing left something to be desired. "I went in ((to the editing room)) with the smallest pocketknife," he explains figuratively. "The Sheriff of Nottingham's death scene was so prolonged it was almost comedic. I don't think you need to see a knife twisting 16 times in a guy's gullet. If you've got to kill him, kill him quickly and move on with the story."

Robinson, a centimillionaire based in Baltimore, now spends three days a week in Los Angeles making movies -- almost all of them successful. In less than four years his independent film company, Morgan Creek Productions, has produced a sizzling track record of 10 profitable films out of 11 releases. That is a notable feat at a time when several independent filmmakers and two major studios, Orion and MGM, are verging on bankruptcy. Despite mostly negative reviews, Robin Hood took in nearly $26 million during its first weekend, the eighth best film opening of all time. Industry experts predict that Robin Hood, which is distributed and partly financed by Warner Bros., could approach $150 million in box-office revenues.

Since Robin Hood will start to break even when its booty reaches $80 million, the movie is likely to provide ample profits to finance Morgan Creek's eight other movies in various stages of production. Robinson, 56, attributes his success to swift decision making and the fact that his own money is on the line. He has invested about $80 million in Morgan Creek and has attracted $200 million from outside investors. "If studio executives lost 25% of their own money on a film," he says, "they'd make better movies." Robinson spent only 20 hours considering whether to buy the Robin Hood script for $1.2 million, and even less time deciding whether to hire Kevin Costner to play the lead for $7.5 million. Deriding some studio executives as dithering bureaucrats, he declares, "I'm never going to have to ask some guy who makes $250,000 a year if I can make a film."

Robinson's affinity for pictures began at age 8 with an Ansco camera; he went on to become an Army photographer. With a bankroll of $40,000 from later work as a still photographer, he bought his first business, a bankrupt Baltimore company that removed shipping wax from imported autos. Over the ensuing years, he bought and expanded a Subaru distributorship and developed commercial office space. "In 1987 I looked at the economy and said it's time to be out of the automotive business. I sold my distributorship, lightened up on my real estate and moved to Hollywood. I think entertainment is a good business to be in."

Unlike some passive investors who have got fleeced in Hollywood, Robinson put his own sweat behind his equity and teamed up with veterans like Joe Roth, who has since gone on to head 20th Century Fox Films. Robinson's new company, named after the 1943 Preston Sturges film The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, scored a hit in 1988 with its first effort, Young Guns. The company went on to produce such other moneymakers as Major League and Pacific Heights, as well as a dud, Coupe de Ville, which took in only $5 million at the box office.

For all his maturity in business, Robinson is a kid when it comes to movies. He wants them to have heroes. "People admire honesty, integrity and bravery," he says. "We don't need to step down; we need to step up. I may make a movie I won't take my child to see, but I'll never make a movie that I wouldn't take my mother to see. If I make a movie and Hitler's in it, he's the bad guy, and I promise you he will die in the end."

Robinson is a demon for details, beginning with a movie's script. "A lot of companies start with an imperfect script, which is like drawing a road map while on a trip," he says. Other steps get just as much scrutiny, from choosing a director to arranging a sound track. "You don't know how good your movie will be, but you can avoid making a bad one," says Robinson. He tries to avoid the movie industry's all-consuming politics. "People don't go to the movies to see pitches and deals, they go to see good films," he says.

Morgan Creek has its lenses focused on more than just movies. The company has already produced MTV videos, toys, Nintendo games and hard- and soft-cover books. A Robin Hood sound-track album is the first offering from Morgan Creek Records, and a planned animated series will initiate a TV division.

Yet Robinson's roots keep him grounded. He spends two days of each workweek at his Baltimore offices, which handle his trucking, port-servicing and real estate interests. Married for 27 years, he talks to his five children daily and says his offspring must gain business experience before coming to Hollywood. But Robinson does harbor at least one more fantasy: to be born again as a cinematographer. Whoever said there were no second acts in American life?

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CAPTION: MORGAN CREEK