Oscar Overview

let him sleep on his couch when Jackson's paltry
Los Angeles per diem ran out.
As Jackson put it, "We played Risk, we watched
bad horror films and we became friends."
A decade later, Jackson called on his old friend
when his beloved Rings project went into turn-
around at Miramax, which had ordered him to
compress the trilogy into two films.
After other studios spurned the project, it was
Ordesky who ushered Jackson and his wife/collabo-
rator Fran Walsh into a meeting with New Line
chairman and CEO Robert Shaye (a former
Ordesky's enthusiasm dates back to his childhood Detroiter) in 1998.
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
In a now legendary moment, Shaye asked the
years as a self-professed "Dungeons d Dragons and
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
director
why he wanted to turn a trilogy into two
fantasy literature geek."
films
rather
than three. "[We felt] just sheer joy —
He noted the Holocaust parallels upon his first
round the time Mark Ordesky discov-
that
our
project
was going to survive," Jackson
reading of Tolkien's trilogy, which was partially
ered J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy trilogy
says. "It wasn't until later that the realization of
written
during
the
Hitler
years:
"The
humans
of
The Lord of the Rings, he was engaged in
what we'd actually gotten ourselves into sunk in."
Tolkien's Middle Earth are besieged by ferocious
his own epic struggle: trying not to
As the director began shooting in more than 100
enemies who hate them for no other reason than
flunk out of Hebrew school at Temple Emanuel in
New
Zealand locations with 2,400 crew members,
they are human," he says. "They have these
Beverly Hills, Calif.
it
was
Ordesky who served as his trouble-shooter,
ambivalent allies, the elves, and the dwarves are
"I was spectacularly unsuccessful at it," confides
advocate
and sounding board.
isolationists living in the mountains. Growing up
the affable, boyish executive producer of Peter
Among
other adventures, the executive producer
Jewish, I could relate to that."
Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of
found himself sitting in a flooded hotel, just after
the Ring, now leading the Oscar pack with 13
torrential rains on the remote island, helping
Left: "Lord of the Rings"
nominations. "I've a terrible facility with lan-
Jackson and his co-writers cut an unwieldy scene.
Executive Producer Mark
guages."
"While it was inherently funny to see people
Ordesky sees a parallel
So 38-year-old Ordesky, then around 12, didn't
walking around the set wearing false noses and
between the Tolkien trilogy
become bar mitzvah until he was 18.
incredibly long beards, there were also some dark
and the Holocaust.
It's the only time he's been late for anything in
moments," Ordesky adds. "At times I remember
his life.
Below: Director Peter
thinking, 'If this doesn't work out, I might not sur-
Before he was 30, the USC journalism grad was
Jackson, left, on the set of
vive this business.'"
head of acquisitions for New Line Cinema. At 34,
Rings," the seventh film to
Instead, Rings gleaned a stellar $73 million dur-
he'd been named president of the studio's indie
receive 13 Academy Award
ing its December 2001 opening and cleaned up
arm, Fine Line Features.
nominations. 'All About
when the Oscar nominations were announced at
Ignoring the critics who called him "a boy in a
Eve" and "Titanic" are
2:30 a.m. New Zealand time on Feb. 12.
man's job," he purchased films that brought Fine
tied for the most nomina-
At the time, Ordesky was sitting in Jackson's liv-
Line its first best picture Oscar nomination (for the
tions with 14 each.
ing room, playing Risk with the director and fellow
Holocaust-tinged Shine) and ushered action super-
Rings alumni; jubilation prevailed as the news
star Jackie Chan (the Rush Hour series) into the
announcer read the names of many of the guests.
New Line family.
"Though we'd all been hopeful, no one vcras pre-
After making a shiduch, or match, between his
pared for the sheer breadth of the nominations,"
old pal Jackson and New Line, he was instrumental
says Ordesky, who recently toured L.A.'s Museum
in shaping the movie that brought New Line its
of Tolerance with Jackson during a Rings screening
first best picture nod and a current worldwide
there.
gross of $724 million.
During a recent interview, the exec suddenly rolls
"It was a gargantuan risk," he says of the studio's
up his right shirtsleeve to reveal an unusual
decision to gamble $270 million on a project never
memento of the film: a tattoo of the number 10 in
before attempted in film history: making three
Tolkien's invented language of Elvish.
films at once on a 274-day shooting schedule.
The tattoo came about after the actors who
"Without question, my job was at stake."
played the nine members of the Fellowship got
So, apparently, was the studio: "A lot of nay-say-
inked with the number nine as a souvenir of the
ers thought we'd lost our minds," Ordesky admits.
shoot.
"So I decided to read Final Cut, the story of the
When the actors suggested that Ordesky was like
making of Heaven's Gate, which was the unmaking
the 10th member of the Fellowship, they arranged
of United Artists.
for him to get his own tattoo.
"I read it because a lot of people were saying
"It's a memento of movies that I desperately
behind my back that I, personally, Mark Ordesky,
wanted
to see made," Ordesky says. "I'm thrilled
Cut to the late 1980s, when Ordesky, then work-
was leading New Line to its Waterloo."
that
I
was
able to play a role in bringing them to
ing in acquisitions, met fellow Rings enthusiast
Jackson saw the executive's role differently.
the
screen."
Peter Jackson. The executive had been trying to
"Mark knew Tolkien's books and he knew what the
convince his bosses to purchase the director's early
franchise could become," the director said in an
films, Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles (which
interview.
Ordesky describes as "unbelievably clever and
"I don't think New Line would have picked up
The Academy Awards airs 8:30 p.m. Sunday,
absolutely disgusting"); his bosses said no way.
the project if he hadn't been so enthusiastic. His
March 24, on ABC.
Undaunted,
Ordesky
secured
Jackson
a
New
contribution to these films has been huge, in every-
screenwriting
gig
and
Nightmare
on
Elm
Street
Line
thing from casting to post-production."

Leader Of The Pack

Executive Producer Mark Ordesky propelled "Lord of the Rings:
The Fellowship of the Ring" to 13 Oscar nominations,
the most for any film this year.

❑

,

3/22
2002

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