Laurie MacDonald

Laurie MacDonald began her career as a television documentary and news producer in San Francisco. She later joined Columbia Pictures where she served as a Vice President of Production. After four years, she and her husband, screenwriter, and producer Walter Parkes started their own production company. Together they produced the "Men In Black" film series, "Flight"(2012), "Gladiator" (2000), "Catch Me If You Can" (2002), "The Ring" (2002), "The Mask of Zorro" (1998) and many others. In total, films produced, or executive produced by MacDonald and Parkes have grossed over $6B globally. MacDonald became a co-head of Amblin Entertainment in 1994 and after only two years was named a co-presidents for the feature division of newly formed DreamWorks Studios. In 2008, she and Parkes left DreamWorks Studios for an overall producing deal under their namesake company Parkes + MacDonald where they produced "The Trial of Chicago 7", written by Aaron Sorkin. MacDonald and Parkes later formed a partnership with ImageNation Abu Dhabi for the development and production of films in the international market. Under this alliance, they produced films along with two feature length documentaries, "He Named Me Malala" (2015) and "Free Solo" (2018), the latter of which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.