At The Movies
Ak..tiZZ%.,
33MaiRMIRMatt
Photo by Vivia n Zin k
rTn.
Jim (Jason Biggs)
is caught in an
embarrassing
moment by his
mom (Molly
Cheek) and dad
(Eugene Levy).
•
is pleased to announce the
$395
LUNCH
SPECIALS
Served Mon.-Sat. from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm
your choice of:
• Soup or Salad
• Sandwich and Cup of Soup
• Sandwich and Salad
for
$ 395
Banquet Facilities Available
Saturday Afternoons,. Nights and Sundays.
Whether a wedding, shower,
Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Anniversary
or any special occasion,
The Sheik would love to serve you.
Open lox Lund) one Dinner 7 -Days
4189 Orcharo Coke Root)
Orcbaro Lake
"I plan to raise my kids Jewish," he
adds, "and belong to a synagogue where
they actually treat you with respect."
But it wasn't their common back-
ground that drew Zide and Herz
together. It was their shared interest in
making a good, entertaining, general-
audience Hollywood movie.
"I think my taste is very much what a
teenager would want to go see," Zide
explains. "It's just mainstream, I think,
very commercial. My office is filled with
stuff from the classic Marx Brothers
movies and Star Wars stuff."
The office he refers to is Zide/Perry
Entertainment in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Even if his career path has been
unconventional, Zide did what most
good Hollywood entrepreneurs do: He
found a niche and filled it.
After graduating from Michigan
State with a finance degree, he headed
to Los Angeles, where he spent a year
and a half at Southwestern University
Law School. Eventually, Zide found a
job in the mailroom of New Line
Cinema, where he met Perry.
His next job, as an agent's assistant
at the high-powered agency
International Creative Management,
convinced him of two things: that he
wasn't going to move up the ladder
there; and that screenwriters, tradi-
tionally one of the least respected pro-
fessions in Hollywood, could use bet-
ter representation. So he became a lit-
erary agent, eventually forming
Zide/Perry Entertainment in 1997.
"We're a real good complement to
each other," he says of partner Craig
Perry, and it worked out because he's
more the creative [one] — sit down
five hours with a writer — while I'm
figuring out how to grow our business.
"We're able to get five times as
much done by having the two of us
together than if either one of us did it
on our own.
One advantage Zide had entering
"
7/9
1999
80 Detroit Jewish News
24 865-00LO
w 248 - 85 0020
the film business was that he knew
firsthand just how difficult it can be.
His father, Martin Zide (who now
sells commercial real estate), and
grandfather, Jack Zide, used to book
independent films into Midwest the-
aters. It was his father who suggested
Warren get a law degree.
"I think everybody wants her child
to have something he can fall back
on," explains his mother, Nancy Zide.
"Not everybody makes it."
Owner of Nancy's Linens in Sylvan
Lake (which sells fine linens and spe-
cializes in monograms and embroi-
dery), Nancy Zide freely expresses her
pride in her children. Daughter
Elizabeth recently graduated from
Wayne State University Medical
School, while Warren's success
includes being named as one of the
film industry's rising stars in The
Hollywood Reporter.
Even though she attended an all-
girls high school, Nancy Zide found
American Pie "a total chuckle. I
thought it was very funny — raunchy,
but funny. This young man who wrote
it has a great, morbid, bizarre sense of
humor like I have."
She invited several friends to an
advance screening, but was concerned
about their reaction to the film's sex-
based storyline. During the movie, she
turned to see them laughing as much
as the other audience members.
"The guys who were there — who
are our age — enjoyed it," Nancy
Zide explains. "They thought it was
terrific. So obviously, these things
have been happening for a few years.
Its not new news."
That reaction, from audience mem-
bers well outside the core teen audi-
ence, was something Warren Zide
hoped for.
"I think our goal," he says, "was for
people to come out of the movie theater
saying, 'I know somebody like that.'"