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Meet Maurice Fadida, Movie Producer
As the age-old adage goes, making it big in Hollywood is a lofty dream to have, but for most, not very realistic. For movie producer Maurice Fadida, it took years before he finally felt like he had finally made it. Through his early years as an aspiring producer, Fadida saw how an education in film could have never afforded him the invaluable experience and lessons he was able to learn on his own purely through personal experience. Today, he owns and runs his own production company based in Hollywood, Kodiak Pictures.
Most recently though, the Israeli producer is anticipating the release of a project he executive produced with Netflix, called The Trial of the Chicago 7, written and directed by the reputable Aaron Sorkin. Despite the fact that its release date isn’t until mid-October of 2020, the movie is already looking like an awards season contender with a story that’s based on historical events from the Democratic National Convention in the 1960’s.
But Fadida wasn’t always producing movies with industry heavyweights like Netflix and Sorkin. In fact, it wasn’t until fairly recently, after he released a film called The Vanishing in 2018, starring Gerard Butler that he was able to take a moment to realize that he had hit a turning point in his career. For once, Fadida saw tangible success and recognition from his industry peers.
“It started getting easier after I produced and financed The Vanishing,” Fadida says. “Even in executing it as well as we did, key industry players, agents, and managers in town started to take note of what I was doing and my business started picking up more momentum.”
“You have to make many sacrifices— financial, emotional, and social,” he says. “And then you have to be prepared to battle the path that you chose. In some cases you’ll even find people in your close circle telling you that you might not be making the right decision, especially if you’re declining a promising job for something entirely new and risky”, he added.