Mark Canton

Canton was born to a Jewish family in Queens, New York City, the son of Shirley and Arthur Canton, who worked in the film industry on marketing and publicity - including such films as Lawrence of Arabia. As a young adult, he met well-known movie personalities like Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, and Doris Day when they visited the family's apartment. After working in the mail room of Warner Bros. while studying at the University of California, Los Angeles, Canton started working for 20th Century Fox and later had jobs with film director Franklin Schaffner, with producer Jon Peters, and in the 1970s as executive assistant to Mike Medavoy at United Artists. ==Career==

Canton worked as executive vice president at Warner Bros. from 1980 onwards. Successes he was involved in at the time include 1983's ''National Lampoon's Vacation, Purple Rain, and the Batman and Lethal Weapon film series, but also notorious box office failures like The Bonfire of the Vanities'' (1990), a picture he described as "the best movie I ever saw" at its first screening. In 1991, Canton quit Warner Bros. where he was executive vice president of the Worldwide Motion Picture Production unit. Warner Bros. let him out of his contract fifteen months early with studio head Bob Daly saying "from our standpoint this was a job that was going to be eliminated." He then became chairman of Sony's Columbia Pictures (later Columbia-TriStar Pictures), where he was involved with some failures like Geronimo: An American Legend, but also with blockbusters such as Men in Black, Air Force One, and ''My Best Friend's Wedding.) and The Cable Guy'', before his final string of movies could become blockbusters. Described at the time as both "known for enthusiasm, rapid-fire talk, a sleek Italian wardrobe and a youthful style" Canton was in those years "one of the most powerful executives in Hollywood". Backed by the German company Senator Entertainment from August 2000 onwards, he struck a first-look deal with Warner Bros. By the end of 2001, the shares of Senator had dropped substantially and Canton had to close down his production company. In 2002, he was the chief executive of Artists Production Group, the movie branch of Artist Management Group. With this company, he produced blockbusters such as 300, Immortals, and The Spiderwick Chronicles. In 2014, Canton co-created the show Power alongside Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson and Courtney Kemp, which earned numerous NAACP Image Awards, including multiple Outstanding Drama Series awards, National Film & Television Awards, People's Choice Awards and BET Awards. This series was the number-one show on premium cable for its six-year run from 2014-2020. In 2026, Canton joined forces with Peter Guber at Mandalay Entertainment as a managing partner for a new wave of feature films while continuing to develop television independently. In his roles as executive, chairman, and producer, Canton has been involved in over 300 major Hollywood productions. ==Other activities and roles==

Canton is a vice-president on the board of the Ischia Global Film & Music Festival, an international film festival held on the Italian island of Ischia. ==Personal life==

Canton was married to Oscar-winning producer Wendy Finerman, with whom he has three children. His brother is the film producer Neil Canton. They co-produced the 2000 film Get Carter. ==Filmography==

He was a producer in all films unless otherwise noted. Film ;Production manager ;Miscellaneous crew ;Thanks Television ==References==