Peter Guber

Peter Guber’s basically a legend in Hollywood—five decades running, and the guy’s still not out of steam. He’s the mastermind behind Mandalay Entertainment Group, but his fingerprints are all over some of the biggest movies you’ve ever heard of: Rain Man, Batman, The Color Purple, Midnight Express—the list just keeps going. Combined, we’re talking over $3 billion at the box office and more Oscar nods than most studios see in a lifetime. He jumped into the game at Columbia Pictures back in ’68 and was running the show within three years. Under his watch, Columbia pumped out hits like Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind—actual game-changers. But Guber’s not the kind of guy to stay put. He left, pulled together Filmworks, and then mashed it up with Casablanca Records (think KISS and Donna Summer at their peak) to create Casablanca Record and Filmworks. That Flashdance soundtrack? Yeah, that was his team, too. He kept hustling, moving through PolyGram Pictures, then dropping it all to co-own Guber-Peters Entertainment Company, which blew up even more with movies, TV, and even the Olympics soundtrack. Sony saw what he was about and bought GPEC, then gave Guber the keys to Sony Pictures. He shook things up big time—rolled out new sound tech, built up Sony’s studio lot, and locked in deals that brought in Magic Johnson Theatres. The dude knows how to spot a trend before it’s even a thing. After Sony, he fired up Mandalay Entertainment, knocked out hits like Donnie Brasco, Sleepy Hollow, and The Birth of a Nation, and even jumped into sports and digital media. Guber’s story? Straight-up Hollywood power play.