Walter F. Parkes

Walter Parkes is a producer, screenwriter, and former studio executive. He and his wife, Laurie MacDonald, ran the motion pictures division of Dreamworks Studios from its inception in 1997 until 2006. In 2009, Mr. Parkes and Ms. MacDonald formed Parkes-MacDonald ImageNation, a partnership with the Abu Dhabi Media Company for the development and production of films for the international market. The partnership produced a feature-length documentary about Malal a Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl, and activist who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban. Additionally, Mr. Parkes and Ms. MacDonald entered into a production deal with NBC/Universal where their first limited series, “Crossbones,” premiered on NBC in 2014.

Mr. Parkes’ films include the “Men In Black” series, “Gladiator,” “Flight,” “Minority Report,” “Catch Me If You Can,” “The Ring,” “Awakenings,” “The Mask of Zorro,” “Twister,” and “Amistad,” as well as the screen adaptations of “The Kite Runner” and of “Steven Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd,” and many others. In total, films produced or executive produced by Mr. Parkes have grossed over $6B globally. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Writer’s Guild of America, and also serves on the Board of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Parkes received a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Yale University and Master of Arts in Communication from Stanford University.