Making Life of Pi

Elizabeth Gabler, President of the division of the Fox Film Studio known as Fox 2000 talks about the challenging road to making Life of Pi. She insisted the book by Yann Martel could be made into not just a movie but a hit film back when she optioned it 10 years ago. And it was her confidence that kept the project going for years until the Chairmen of the studio wanted to shut it down--after 7 years of development and millions of dollars spent they just felt it was too risky. At that point Ang Lee got on a plane bound for L.A. with a previsualization of the shipwreck sequence that would go on to convince them to keep going. After getting the country of Taiwan on board to help reduce the costs the rest is box office gold. The film is about to reach $400 billion world-wide and it received 11 Oscar nominations.

GUESTS:

Elizabeth Gabler, President Fox 2000

LINKS:

Elizabeth Gabler bio, http://www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/elizabeth-gabler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-quadrant_movie

http://www.boatus.com/magazine/2012/december/Behind-The-Scenes-With-The-Original-Pi.asp