Stuart Ford (entertainment executive)
Stuart Ford is a British-born film and television producer based in Los Angeles. He is a member of the executive branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the Television Academy. He was the recipient of Variety's Billion Dollar Producer award in 2023.
Education
Ford was educated at the Liverpool Blue Coat School, and later obtained both a BA and an MA in Law from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University.Professional career
Los Angeles based Stuart Ford is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AGC Studios. UK born and Oxford University educated, Ford is a former entertainment attorney and Miramax Films senior studio executive who in 2007 founded IM Global, which over the next ten years he built into one of the industry's leading independent film and television production, financing and sales platforms with ancillary talent management and corporate publicity businesses across North America, South East Asia, India, Latin America and Europe.In February 2018 Ford launched so-called "super-indie" AGC Studios, an international film and television production and licensing company that develops, produces, finances and globally licenses a diverse portfolio of feature films, scripted, unscripted and factual content with major corporate backing from Silicon Valley, Latin America and the Middle East. Since its inception AGC has been involved with more than 50 major film and television productions.
As a producer and financier Ford has worked with a huge array of leading directors such as Martin Scorsese, Gary Ross, Mel Gibson, Ron Howard, Doug Liman, Neil Burger, James Wan, Scott Derrickson, Roland Emmerich, Tom Ford and Richard Linklater. He has produced or executive produced more than seventy films and television shows and has assembled in excess of $2 billion in independent production financing from North America, India, China, Latin America and the Middle East during his career.
Ford has also established AGC Television as a leading independent studio with a variety of heavyweight scripted shows. Now streaming, "Those About To Die" had a $165m budget for its first season and is one of the biggest scale television shows ever financed by an independent studio.
Aside from being an acknowledged industry expert and innovator in assembling film and television financing and distribution strategies, Ford has been one of the industry’s leading champions of international cinema and in tandem with his prolific Hollywood output has launched successful sales and distribution businesses respectively specializing in Latin American, Chinese language and Bollywood content as well as a Beijing based corporate PR company Go Global and a Latinx talent management company Valor Entertainment. Ford also has extensive experience working alongside the Arabic language film and television community including acting as executive producer and worldwide distributor on $40m Arabic language thriller "Al Kameen" from Pierre Morel and $100m+ Arabian epic "Desert Warrior" from Rupert Wyatt.
Ford has also established AGC Unwritten as a prominent player in the non-fiction arena. The subsidiaries successes include global phenomena "The Tinder Swindler."
Ford is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Television Academy as well as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
Personal life
Ford lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons.Awards
- 50 most influential individuals in global cinema: Stuart Ford - The Guardian 2010
- Variety Award for Achievement in International Film: Stuart Ford, IM Global - Variety 2015
- Variety 500, 500 Most Important People in Global Media: Stuart Ford - 2021, 2022, 2023
- Variety Billion Dollar Producer: Stuart Ford - 2023