Dan Halsted is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film producer

Film producer

A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

, agent, and manager.

He was born in New York on July 12, 1962, and moved to Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...

 in 1976. He graduated from the UCLA

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

 with a B.A. in Political Science. His Hollywood career started in 1984 as an assistant to Scott Rudin

Scott Rudin

Scott Rudin is an American film producer and a theatrical producer.-Early life and work:Scott Rudin was born in New York City, NY, on July 14, 1958, and raised in the town of Baldwin on Long Island. At the age of sixteen, he started working as an assistant to theatre producer Kermit Bloomgarden...

 at 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

 before later becoming an agent at United Talent Agency (formerly Bauer Benedek Agency).

While at 20th Century Fox and UTA, Halsted packaged and sold films such as There's Something About Mary

There's Something About Mary

There's Something About Mary is a 1998 American comedy film, directed by the Farrelly brothers, Bobby and Peter. It stars Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon and Ben Stiller, and it is a combination of romantic comedy and gross-out film....

, New Jack City

New Jack City

New Jack City is a 1991 crime film starring Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Mario Van Peebles, Judd Nelson, and Chris Rock. Snipes stars as Nino Brown, a rising drug dealer and crime lord in New York City during the crack epidemic...

, The Fabulous Baker Boys

The Fabulous Baker Boys

The Fabulous Baker Boys is a 1989 American romantic drama musical film written and directed by Steve Kloves, and starring real life brothers Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges as two brothers struggling to make a living as lounge jazz pianists in Seattle...

, K-9

K-9 (film)

K-9 is a 1989 American action comedy film starring James Belushi and Mel Harris. Directed by Rod Daniel and written by Steven Siegel and Scott Myers, it was produced by Lawrence Gordon and Charles Gordon, and released by Universal City Studios...

, RoboCop

RoboCop

RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction-action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future, RoboCop centers on a police officer who is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg known as "RoboCop"...

, Casualties of War, Jumpin' Jack Flash

Jumpin' Jack Flash (film)

Jumpin' Jack Flash is a 1986 spy comedy film starring Whoopi Goldberg, Stephen Collins, Carol Kane, John Wood, Annie Potts, and Jonathan Pryce...

, Predator and The Untouchables.

Halsted left the representation business in 1990 to work at Hollywood Pictures

Hollywood Pictures

Hollywood Pictures is one of The Walt Disney Company's several alternate movie divisions. Like Disney's Touchstone Pictures brand, it produces films for a more mature adult audience than Walt Disney Pictures.-History:...

, a division of The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

. While there, he oversaw projects such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (film)

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is a 1992 American thriller about a vengeful nanny out to destroy a naïve woman and steal her family. The film was directed by Curtis Hanson, starring Annabella Sciorra, Rebecca De Mornay, and Matt McCoy...

,Tombstone

Tombstone (film)

Tombstone is a 1993 American action film set in the Old West directed by George P. Cosmatos, along with uncredited directorial efforts by actor Kurt Russell and writer Kevin Jarre. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Jarre....

, Evita

Evita (film)

Evita is the 1996 film adaptation of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical of the same name based on the life of Eva Perón. It was directed by Alan Parker and written by Parker and Oliver Stone. It starred Madonna, Antonio Banderas, and Jonathan Pryce...

, Mr. Holland's Opus

Mr. Holland's Opus

Mr. Holland's Opus is a 1995 American drama film directed by Stephen Herek, produced by Ted Field, Robert W. Cort, and Michael Nolin, and Executive Produced by Patrick Sheane Duncan. It stars Richard Dreyfuss in the title role, and the cast includes Glenne Headly, Olympia Dukakis, William H. Macy...

, Encino Man

Encino Man

Encino Man, released in Europe as California Man, is a 1992 comedy film directed by Les Mayfield and starring Brendan Fraser, Sean Astin and Pauly Shore. The plot revolves around two geeky teenagers from Encino, Los Angeles, California played by Astin and Shore, who discover a caveman in their...

, Son in Law

Son in Law

Son in Law is a 1993 comedy film starring Pauly Shore, Carla Gugino, Lane Smith, Cindy Pickett, Tiffani Thiessen, Patrick Renna, Dan Gauthier and Dennis Burkley.-Plot:...

, The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club (film)

The Joy Luck Club is a 1993 American film about the relationships between Chinese-American women and their Chinese mothers. It is based on the 1989 novel of the same name by Amy Tan, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ronald Bass. The film was produced by Oliver Stone and directed by Wayne Wang...

And While You Were Sleeping

While You Were Sleeping

While You Were Sleeping is a 1995 romantic comedy film directed by Jon Turteltaub and written by Daniel G. Sullivan and Frederic Lebow. It stars Sandra Bullock as Lucy, a Chicago Transit Authority token collector and Bill Pullman as Jack, the brother of a man whose life she saves, along with Peter...

.

Halsted partnered with filmmaker Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...

 in 1995 to create Illusion Entertainment, a joint production company. Together, they produced films such as Nixon

Nixon (film)

Nixon is a 1995 American biographical film directed by Oliver Stone for Cinergi Pictures that tells the story of the political and personal life of former US President Richard Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins....

, U Turn, The Art of War

The Art of War (film)

The Art of War is a 2000 Canadian-American action film directed by Christian Duguay, and starring Wesley Snipes, Michael Biehn, Anne Archer and Donald Sutherland...

, The Corruptor

The Corruptor

The Corruptor is a 1999 American action thriller film directed by James Foley, and starring Chow Yun-fat and Mark Wahlberg.-Plot:NYPD Lieutenant Nick Chen is one of New York City's police officers and is head of the Asian Gang Unit...

, Beyond Borders

Beyond Borders

Beyond Borders is a 2003 drama film about aid workers, directed by Martin Campbell and starring Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen. The original music score was composed by James Horner....

, Freeway, Any Given Sunday

Any Given Sunday

Any Given Sunday is a 1999 American drama film directed by Oliver Stone depicting a fictional professional American football team. The film features an ensemble cast, consisting of Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, Jamie Foxx, James Woods, LL Cool J, Matthew Modine, John C...

and the documentary The Last Days of Kennedy and King for TBS

TBS (TV channel)

TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...

.

In 1999, Halsted ventured out on his own with Halsted Pictures, a multi-year, first-look production deal with Mandalay Pictures

Mandalay Pictures

Mandalay Pictures is a film studio founded in 1995, part of Mandalay Entertainment Group. It teams up with Sony and Paramount Pictures for most of their films. The founder and CEO is Peter Guber. From 1997 until 2002, Lionsgate Entertainment owned a stake in Mandalay Pictures...

. That same year, he produced The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides (film)

The Virgin Suicides is a 1999 American drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola, produced by her father Francis Ford Coppola, starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, and A.J...

and the action film S.W.A.T.

S.W.A.T. (film)

S.W.A.T. is a 2003 action-crime film directed by Clark Johnson, and is based on the 1975 television series of the same name. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, LL Cool J and Michelle Rodriguez. It was produced by Neal H...

. During this time, Halsted also executive produced both the TNT television pilot

Witchblade (2000 film)

Witchblade is a made-for-television live-action superhero film adapted from the cult comic book by Marc Silvestri and Top Cow Productions. Set in contemporary New York City, the occult police drama centers on Sara Pezzini , a brooding and willful homicide detective who is the reluctant inheritor of...

 and series

Witchblade (TV series)

Following a pilot film in August 2000, the cable network TNT premiered a Witchblade television series based on the Witchblade Top Cow Productions comic book series in 2001. Some of the episodes were written by Ralph Hemecker, Marc Silvestri and J.D...

 Witchblade, and the movie Serving Sara

Serving Sara

Serving Sara is a 2002 romantic comedy film which stars Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley and Bruce Campbell. Joe Tyler is a process server who is given the assignment to serve Sara Moore with divorce papers.-Plot:...

.

One of Halsted’s final projects as a full-time producer was the award-winning Garden State

Garden State (film)

Garden State is a 2004 comedy-drama film written by, directed by, and starring Zach Braff, with Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, and Sir Ian Holm. The film centers on Andrew Largeman , a 26-year-old actor/waiter who returns to his hometown in New Jersey after his mother dies...

. Halsted helped find buyers for the film, which started as a relatively unknown independent and eventually sold for $5 million to Miramax Films

Miramax Films

Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...

 and Fox Searchlight Pictures

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Fox Searchlight Pictures, established in 1998, is a film division of Fox Filmed Entertainment alongside the larger Fox studio 20th Century Fox...

 at Sundance 2004.

Manage-ment

In 2004, Halsted formed his own company, Manage-ment, representing film and television writers and directors. Halsted and Manage-ment also provide equity consulting and investment banking services to financiers, with services provided on such films as Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton (film)

Michael Clayton is a 2007 American drama film written and directed by Tony Gilroy, starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton and Sydney Pollack...

, The Namesake

The Namesake (film)

The Namesake is a 2006 film which was released in the United States on March 9, 2007, following screenings at film festivals in Toronto and New York City. It was directed by Mira Nair and is based upon the novel of the same name by Jhumpa Lahiri, who appeared in the movie. Sooni Taraporevala...

, Garden State, the 2010 Best Documentary Emmy nominee Crips and Bloods: Made in America

Crips and Bloods: Made in America

Crips and Bloods: Made in America is a documentary by Stacy Peralta discussing the unique circumstances and factors that led to the creation of Crips and Bloods, two of the most violent gangs in all of United States history. The documentary goes beyond the general background of and discusses the...

and Samsara, the sequel to Baraka

Baraka (film)

Baraka is a 1992 non-narrative film directed by Ron Fricke. The title Baraka is a word that means blessing in a multitude of languages....

.

At the end of 2011, Halsted signed a first-look development deal with Fox Television Studios

Fox Television Studios

Fox Television Studios, Inc. is the TV production arm of the News Corporation's Fox Entertainment Group, as well as being the production arm of Fox and a production arm of 20th Century Fox Television, Inc., itself a division of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation...

.

External links