Jerry Bruckheimer(I)

Jerry Bruckheimer is a film and television producer born on September 21, 1943 in Detroit. He graduated from high school in 1961 before it was moving to Arizona. He started his career in 1968 to produce television commercials and advertising for the firm BBD&O in New York.

He left the commercial industry, and branched out into film production and served as associate producer for Dick Richards on the films La Poussière, la Sueur et la Poudre (1972) and Rafferty et les auto-stoppeuses (1975). He started out his production company Jerry Bruckheimer & Associates and then served as producer on the following two films Adieu, ma jolie (1975) and Il était une fois... la légion (1977) before the duo broke up.

He then became an independent producer, serving his job on his films American Gigolo (1980), Les massacreurs de Brooklyn (1980), Le Solitaire (1981), La Féline (1982) and Docteurs in love (1982) throughout the early 1980s, for one of their major studios.

In 1979, Don Simpson met Bruckheimer while working on "American Gigolo" for Paramount. In 1982, Simpson left Paramount Pictures to start out its own independent company with a deal at Paramount, and weeks later, Simpson's production services were merged with Bruckheimer's. During his lifetime, he produced films in the 80s and 90s for Paramount like Flashdance (1983), Voleur de désirs (1984), Le Flic de Beverly Hills (1984) and its sequel Le Flic de Beverly Hills 2 (1987), Top Gun (1986) and Jours de tonnerre (1990), most of them met with success.

After the minor failure of "Days of Thunder", Simpson and Bruckheimer severed its ties with Paramount, and signed a deal with The Walt Disney Studios. In the mid 90s, both Simpson and Bruckheimer produced Tel est pris qui croyait prendre (1994), Bad Boys : Flics de choc (1995), USS Alabama (1995), Esprits rebelles (1995) and Rock (1996). In 1995, Simpson and Bruckheimer terminated its relationship, and the next year Simpson died.

Bruckheimer expanded its activity on television with a deal at Touchstone Television. He produced two shows Esprits rebelles (1996) for ABC and Spécial O.P.S. Force (1997) for Rysher Entertainment and TV affiliates and two telepics Max Q (1998) and Vote sous influence (1999), both for ABC.

The next few Bruckheimer productions after Simpson died in the late 90s and the early 2000s were Les Ailes de l'enfer (1997), Armageddon (1998), Ennemi d'État (1998), 60 secondes chrono (2000) and Coyote Girls (2000). In 1998, he established Technical Black Films to produce the film Le plus beau des combats (2000). In 1999, his Bruckheimer production company signed a deal with Ridley Scott and Tony Scott's Scott Free Productions to produce films over a two year period.

In 2000, Bruckheimer hit big with Les Experts (2000). The success of the show led to spinoffs Les Experts : Miami (2002), Les Experts : Manhattan (2004) and Les Experts : Cyber (2015). He followed the franchise up with the reality show The Amazing Race (2001), of which it is also an success made Bruckheimer a major producer for the CBS network. In 2001, he signed a deal with Warner Bros. Television to produce TV shows. He followed up his TV career with FBI - Portés disparus (2002) and Cold Case : Affaires classées (2003).

In 2001, he produced two war films Pearl Harbor (2001) and La Chute du faucon noir (2001). The former received negative critical reaction, and the latter gained them critical acclaim. He followed up in 2002 with Bad Company (2002). Throughout the 2000s, Bruckheimer was an active entertainment producer, working on the films Kangourou Jack (2003), Veronica Guerin (2003), Le Roi Arthur (2004), Les Chemins du triomphe (2006), Déjà vu (2006), Confessions d'une accro du shopping (2009) and Mission G (2009) for Disney Studios, and the TV shows Profiles from the Front Line (2003), Skin (2003), D.O.S. - Division des opérations spéciales (2005), Just Legal (2005), Close to Home: Juste Cause (2005), Justice (2006), Eleventh Hour (2008), The Line (2009) and Les Oubliés (2009).

He is the creative force for franchise films. In 2003, he made a sequel to his "Bad Boys", Bad Boys II (2003) and Bad Boys for Life (2020), and he launched the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, starting with Pirates des Caraïbes : La Malédiction du Black Pearl (2003), and spawning sequels like Pirates des Caraïbes : Le Secret du coffre maudit (2006), Pirates des Caraïbes : Jusqu'au bout du monde (2007), Pirates des Caraïbes: La Fontaine de jouvence (2011) and Pirates des Caraïbes : La Vengeance de Salazar (2017) and the "National Treasure" franchise, comprising of two films Benjamin Gates et le Trésor des Templiers (2004) and Benjamin Gates et le Livre des secrets (2007).

In 2007, he had to partner with MTV to create a game studio, and joined the ZeniMax board of directors. In 2009, he launched Jerry Bruckheimer Games, and by 2011 rumored to be worked on three titles, before it was shut down in 2013.

By the 2010s, he was in declining force, and his films Prince of Persia: Les Sables du temps (2010), L'Apprenti sorcier (2010), Lone Ranger : Naissance d'un héros (2013), Horse Soldiers (2018) and Gemini Man (2019) are turned out to be box office disappointments, and his TV shows Miami Medical (2010), Chase (2010), The Whole Truth (2010), Hostages (2013), Training Day (2017) and Councils of Dads (2020) turned out to be failures after one season.

In 2013, he signed a deal with Paramount Pictures to produce follow-up films to "Top Gun" and "Beverly Hills Cop" and their deal with Disney ended. Three years later, he terminated its deal with Warner Bros. Television and a year later signed with CBS Television Studios. His minor box office success rolled in with Délivre-nous du mal (2014). His only big TV hits came in from the decade were Lucifer (2016) and Los Angeles: Bad Girls (2019).

Bruckheimer was named as one of the investors of a proposed sports arena in Las Vegas, and had been rumored to be the leading choice by the National Hockey League (NHL) to own an expansion hockey team that would play in the arena. Bruckheimer was also named as one of the investors of a proposed Seattle-based NHL expansion team whose application was submitted in early 2018. The NHL Board of Governors voted to approve the team, named the Seattle Kraken, on December 4, 2018, which will start play in the 2021-22 season. Jerry Bruckheimer was part of an investment group that also included Tim Leiweke (Oak View Group) and David Bonderman (minority owner NBA's Boston Celtics).

He is currently on post-production on the sequel to his 1986 film "Top Gun", Top Gun: Maverick (2022) for Paramount Pictures.