E Is For Megan Ellison

It's Friday and the first week of the A to Z is almost up. I know I'm going to be playing catch up this weekend. I'm really, really excited because my book Encore Performances, is getting the Michael Di Gesu special treatment over at his blog In Time today. When you have a moment, please stop by and check out the amazing intro he wrote for me. Thank you, Michael!

Megan Ellison is a dynamo of a producer whom you've probably never heard of, but you will. She is on the fast track to being a giant in Hollywood. Getting her start in 2006, Megan financed an independent film, Waking Madison, about a woman who locks herself in a room for thirty without food in order to cure her multiple personality disorder. From there she went on to help finance several projects which went nowhere until she invested in the Coen Brothers remake True Grit.

In 2011, she founded Annapurna Pictures, a studio that has produced some of the finest pictures this past year including The Master, Zero Dark Thirty, Lawless and Killing Them Softly. On the project list this year are The Grandmaster, Her and Foxcatchers. We will be hearing about Megan more often as her future's so bright, she's gotta wear shades like the song says.

My E post today is a little bit sad as my man, Roger Ebert, passed away yesterday. He was a giant among film critics, a true intellect who understood film as few people do. He had the wit and incisiveness of a critic, but the soul of a passionate intellect. He wrote volumes on cinema, its history, its creative movements and its great characters. No one does that anymore and he will be missed. The balcony is closed forever.