Veteran producer duo Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher return to the arena with ‘Gladiator II’
Photo by Max Savage; Courtesy of Noela Hueso
Dating in Hollywood is hard, but some couples have just got it figured out. Doug Wick, an independent producer, and Lucy Fisher, a seasoned studio executive, had specifically avoided working with each other after they got married in 1986. That is, until Columbia Pictures picked up Wick’s 1999 film “Stuart Little,” and vice chairman Fisher found herself overseeing her husband’s project. Two years later, she became co-chairman at his production company, and the pair’s special collaboration has found massive success over the last two decades.
“Being a producer means you're in charge of everything, and everything is a lot — if you ever can have a partner, I’d really advise it,” Fisher said. “Doug is great at diffusing a problem. There is nobody better in the world that can make the problem diminish by seeing each person's point of view and making the differences in opinion become smaller.”
On the heels of their new film “Gladiator II,” which was nominated for an Oscar and two Golden Globes, Wick and Fisher joined Dodge College of Film and Media Arts Dean Stephen Galloway on Feb. 24 for an eventful evening. “Gladiator II” screened in the Marion Knott Studios Folino Theater as the producing duo mingled with a few lucky Dodge students at a lottery-access dinner. After the film, they sat down for a live interview with Galloway and shared invaluable advice from their decades of experience in the film industry.
When asked what makes a great producer, Wick replied: “In the midst of an endless stream of problem-solving, not losing your North Star. With movies, anything can go wrong. Practical things: someone doesn’t show up, someone’s an asshole, someone turns out not to be good. How do you not only solve those problems, but keep your eye on the ball so you're still moving in some way that adds up?”
Fisher graduated cum laude from Harvard University and found her first long-term home in Hollywood as executive vice principal of worldwide production at Warner Bros. from 1981 to 1996. There, she worked with directors like Steven Spielberg and oversaw films like “The Color Purple,” “Gremlins” and “The Goonies.” Fisher moved to Sony and, as the vice chairman of Columbia Tri-Star from 1996 to 2001, helped the studio break industry box-office records with films like “Men in Black,” “Jerry Maguire” and “Stuart Little.” Fisher joined Red Wagon Entertainment, Wick’s production company, in 2001 and has co-produced their films since, winning several notable industry awards in the process.
“A producer's job is to solve a problem, not to ask somebody else how to solve the problem,” Fisher said. “So it doesn't matter to me if the problem is changing a light bulb, or the actor didn’t show or the actor is sick — what are we gonna shoot today? It's all the same. You have a problem. What are you gonna do about it?”
After graduated cum laude from Yale University, Wick started out as a production assistant for director Alan Pakula. After a decade of independently producing films, Wick founded Red Wagon in 1999, and finally struck gold that same year with “Girl, Interrupted” and “Stuart Little.” It seems he couldn’t wait for that first Oscar, because the following year, “Gladiator” won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and British Academy for Film and Television Arts Awards (BAFTAs). After Fisher joined Red Wagon as co-chairman, they produced hits like “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “The Great Gatsby,” the “Divergent” series and “Gladiator II.” His films have grossed over $3 billion at the box office, garnered 22 Academy Award nominations and seven wins.
“One thing regarding partners and working with people is: if you can operate from a point of view of genuine affection, you'll see their talent and you'll know what it is, but you'll also see their deficiencies, as you see your own,” Wick said. “Part of a good collaboration is protecting them from their worst instincts and celebrating their best.”
“Gladiator II” grossed $460 million worldwide, while the original grossed $465 million worldwide (not adjusted for inflation). The 2024 sequel, which follows Lucius, the son of Russel Crowe’s Maximus, stars Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington, Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger, with Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi as the only returning cast members from the first film.
“There were a lot of newcomers because Doug killed off everybody in the first movie,” Fisher said.
Casting Mescal was not an obvious choice. At the time, Mescal hadn’t been in any notable films, and had only generated buzz for his role in “Normal People,” a Hulu drama mini-series that had very little in common with the brutal Roman arena.
“We didn’t do a screen test — (director) Ridley (Scott) met him and fell in love,” Fisher said. “When we met him, we asked him one very pertinent question. He's not a huge guy, and he had played a very sensitive, soulful guy, and here he was gonna have to be a gladiator. How do you pose a question that isn't offensive to try to figure out whether this guy could turn into that guy? So we said, ‘Did you ever play sports in high school?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I played Irish rugby,’ and that was the answer that proved he was tough. (Paramount) backed Paul early on, which was a big gamble, but obviously a good gamble because he's great and a movie star.”
The “Gladiator” legacy stretches back to the late ‘90s, and Wick reflected on pitching the original idea to studios and how he got Scott interested in the first place.
“When we went to Ridley, we had a piece of research,” Wick said. “There was an 18th century French painter who had done a kind of idealized piece of the Coliseum — kind of a celebration of the empire. And in it, there were the thumbs-up, thumbs-down, there were the fights and there was the beautiful lighting. We went in to meet with Ridley, and we presented the painting. Ridley said, ‘I'll do the movie.’ And I said, ‘Ridley, don't you want to read the script?’ He said, ‘No, we'll get that right. I know how to shoot that.’”
Having been a leading studio executive for 25 years, Fisher knows exactly how to establish synergy between risk-averse studios worrying about shareholders, and producers who want to make the best movie possible. After all, both sides want the movie to gross as much as possible, and Red Wagon found this profitable partnership with Paramount for their newest film.
“We both understand how studios need to feel safe and they don’t want to be threatened by surprises,” Fisher said. “It was great to make a movie that the studio wanted to make, because for basically every single movie — the studio normally doesn't wanna make it. They throw up a million obstacles along the way, sometimes insane ones, sometimes legitimate ones, but it's usually an obstacle course and you have to make so many compromises just to get a movie made. (Paramount) were very keen to make the movie.”
Decades of work and vast success in the film industry are enough for most people, but Wick and Fisher have no plans to slow down. After the success of “Gladiator II,” they’re more inspired than ever, as they know how to always stay in touch with the magic of filmmaking.
“The most rewarding thing for me as a producer is when I'm in a room and I think ‘in a million years, I could have never thought of that,’” Fisher said. “Something occurs on set, or something occurs in development, or something occurs with a costume that changes everything, or whatever it is, where you just remember that the sum is so much greater than the parts. That is so fulfilling.”
Dodge College of Film and Media Arts Master Classes are available to all Chapman students and alumni. Seats are available either on a first-come, first-served basis or by lottery system, depending on the Master Class. Dates, times, upcoming guests and additional information can be found in the lobby of Marion Knott Studios or on the Dodge CollegeInstagram account.