Sonic X Episode 14 - That's What Friends Are For (2003 - Warner Bros. Animation, TMS Entertainment, Miramax, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, American Zoetrope and Gracie Films)

Jonathan Liebesman was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on September 15, 1976. He would remain in his home country, studying filmmaking at the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance, until 1996; that year, he traveled to New York City to visit his cousin who was attending New York University. Soon after the visit, Jonathan enrolled at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

For his student first film, Jonathan turned Roald Dahl's short story Genesis and Catastrophe (2000) into a 8-minute, award-winning short that help him land Hollywood representation; accolades included the 2000 Hollywood Film Festival's Young Filmmaker Award and the Austin Film Festival's Student Short Film Award.

Jonathan would make his feature-film debut in 2002 with Darkness Falls (2003), a dark twist on the Tooth Fairy tale that opened at #1 at the box office despite being critically panned. It also served as the big-screen debut for Emma Caulfield Ford, long a fan-favorite as Anya Jenkins on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).

Rings (2005), his short film that connected The Ring (2002) and its sequel, was first released as a bonus disc with the re-release of The Ring on DVD. The short caught the attention of Michael Bay and his production company, Platinum Dunes, and soon Jonathan was installed as the director of the company's project The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), a prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), the widely successful remake of the original.

Initially announced as the director of the Friday the 13th reboot, Jonathan's next feature would instead be The Killing Room (2009) with Peter Stormare, Chloë Sevigny, Clea DuVall, Timothy Hutton, Nick Cannon and Shea Whigham. The psychological thriller played the festival circuit before being released on DVD in the United States.

A few months before The Killing Room's Sundance world premiere in January 2009, Jonathan was announced as the director of Battle Los Angeles (2011), an alien-invasion film starring Aaron Eckhart and released by Columbia Pictures. The sci-fi/action film was a worldwide hit and put Jonathan in the running for a handful of big-studio pictures.

Before Battle LA's release, he had handed the job of directing [error] as Warner Bros., though that project remains in development at this time. Instead, Jonathan took the reins for Wrath of the Titans (2012), the sequel to successful but maligned Clash of the Titans (2010).

Currently, Jonathan is in development on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) at Paramount and an Untitled Julius Caesar Project with Warner Bros.

Alan Burnett was born in 1949 in the USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Batman Beyond (1999), Superman: The Animated Series (1996) and The Batman (2004).

Liz Holzman was born on 9 February 1953 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was a producer, known for Pinky and the Brain (1995), Animaniacs (1993) and The Zeta Project (2001). She died on 11 August 2014 in Portland, Oregon, USA.

Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, but grew up in a New York suburb in a creative, supportive Italian-American family. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician. His mother, Italia Coppola (née Pennino), had been an actress. Francis Ford Coppola graduated with a degree in drama from Hofstra University, and did graduate work at UCLA in filmmaking. He was training as assistant with filmmaker Roger Corman, working in such capacities as sound-man, dialogue director, associate producer and, eventually, director of Dementia 13 (1963), Coppola's first feature film. During the next four years, Coppola was involved in a variety of script collaborations, including writing an adaptation of "This Property is Condemned" by Tennessee Williams (with Fred Coe and Edith Sommer), and screenplays for Is Paris Burning? (1966) and Patton (1970), the film for which Coppola won a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award. In 1966, Coppola's 2nd film brought him critical acclaim and a Master of Fine Arts degree. In 1969, Coppola and George Lucas established American Zoetrope, an independent film production company based in San Francisco. The company's first project was THX 1138 (1971), produced by Coppola and directed by Lucas. Coppola also produced the second film that Lucas directed, American Graffiti (1973), in 1973. This movie got five Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. In 1971, Coppola's film The Godfather (1972) became one of the highest-grossing movies in history and brought him an Oscar for writing the screenplay with Mario Puzo The film was a Best Picture Academy Award-winner, and also brought Coppola a Best Director Oscar nomination. Following his work on the screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), Coppola's next film was The Conversation (1974), which was honored with the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and brought Coppola Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscar nominations. Also released that year, The Godfather Part II (1974), rivaled the success of The Godfather (1972), and won six Academy Awards, bringing Coppola Oscars as a producer, director and writer. Coppola then began work on his most ambitious film, Apocalypse Now (1979), a Vietnam War epic that was inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1993). Released in 1979, the acclaimed film won a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and two Academy Awards. Also that year, Coppola executive produced the hit The Black Stallion (1979). With George Lucas, Coppola executive produced Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980), directed by Akira Kurosawa, and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), directed by Paul Schrader and based on the life and writings of Yukio Mishima. Coppola also executive produced such films as The Escape Artist (1982), Hammett (1982) The Black Stallion Returns (1983), Barfly (1987), Wind (1992), The Secret Garden (1993), etc.

He helped to make a star of his nephew, Nicolas Cage. Personal tragedy hit in 1986 when his son Gio died in a boating accident. Francis Ford Coppola is one of America's most erratic, energetic and controversial filmmakers.

Sofia Coppola was born on May 14, 1971 in New York City, New York, USA as Sofia Carmina Coppola. She is a director, known for Somewhere (2010), Lost in Translation (2003), and Marie Antoinette (2006). She has been married to Thomas Mars since August 27, 2011. They have two daughters, Romy and Cosima. She was previously married to Spike Jonze.

James L. Brooks was born on 9 May 1940 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Broadcast News (1987), As Good as It Gets (1997) and Terms of Endearment (1983). He has been married to Jennifer Simchowitz since 24 November 2024. He was previously married to Holly Holmberg Brooks and Marianne Catherine Morrissey.

Harvey Weinstein was born on March 19, 1952, in Flushing, Queens, New York City, New York, USA, the first of two boys born to Max and Miriam Weinstein. He is a film producer, known for Pulp Fiction (1994), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Gangs of New York (2002). He has been married and divorced twice; most recently from Georgina Chapman and previously from Eve Chilton.

Bryan Singer is an American film director and producer who got his start writing and co-directing the short film Lions Den with his classmates while he attended USC. He was hired by 20th Century Fox to direct X-Men, which helped kick-start the superhero renaissance. He later directed three sequels. He went to direct Superman Returns, a revival of the Superman film series starring Brandon Routh. He also directed Valkyrie, Bohemian Rhapsody and Jack the Giant Slayer.

Jerry Bruckheimer is a film and television producer born on September 21, 1943 in Detroit. He graduated from high school in 1961 before it was moving to Arizona. He started his career in 1968 to produce television commercials and advertising for the firm BBD&O in New York.

He left the commercial industry, and branched out into film production and served as associate producer for Dick Richards on the films The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972) and Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975). He started out his production company Jerry Bruckheimer & Associates and then served as producer on the following two films Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and March or Die (1977) before the duo broke up.

He then became an independent producer, serving his job on his films American Gigolo (1980), Defiance (1980), Thief (1981), Cat People (1982) and Young Doctors in Love (1982) throughout the early 1980s, for one of their major studios.

In 1979, Don Simpson met Bruckheimer while working on "American Gigolo" for Paramount. In 1982, Simpson left Paramount Pictures to start out its own independent company with a deal at Paramount, and weeks later, Simpson's production services were merged with Bruckheimer's. During his lifetime, he produced films in the 80s and 90s for Paramount like Flashdance (1983), Thief of Hearts (1984), Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and its sequel Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Top Gun (1986) and Days of Thunder (1990), most of them met with success.

After the minor failure of "Days of Thunder", Simpson and Bruckheimer severed its ties with Paramount, and signed a deal with The Walt Disney Studios. In the mid 90s, both Simpson and Bruckheimer produced The Ref (1994), Bad Boys (1995), Crimson Tide (1995), Dangerous Minds (1995) and The Rock (1996). In 1995, Simpson and Bruckheimer terminated its relationship, and the next year Simpson died.

Bruckheimer expanded its activity on television with a deal at Touchstone Television. He produced two shows Dangerous Minds (1996) for ABC and Soldier of Fortune, Inc. (1997) for Rysher Entertainment and TV affiliates and two telepics Max Q (1998) and Swing Vote (1999), both for ABC.

The next few Bruckheimer productions after Simpson died in the late 90s and the early 2000s were Con Air (1997), Armageddon (1998), Enemy of the State (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) and Coyote Ugly (2000). In 1998, he established Technical Black Films to produce the film Remember the Titans (2000). In 1999, his Bruckheimer production company signed a deal with Ridley Scott and Tony Scott's Scott Free Productions to produce films over a two year period.

In 2000, Bruckheimer hit big with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000). The success of the show led to spinoffs CSI: Miami (2002), CSI: NY (2004) and CSI: Cyber (2015). He followed the franchise up with the reality show The Amazing Race (2001), of which it is also an success made Bruckheimer a major producer for the CBS network. In 2001, he signed a deal with Warner Bros. Television to produce TV shows. He followed up his TV career with Without a Trace (2002) and Cold Case (2003).

In 2001, he produced two war films Pearl Harbor (2001) and Black Hawk Down (2001). The former received negative critical reaction, and the latter gained them critical acclaim. He followed up in 2002 with Bad Company (2002). Throughout the 2000s, Bruckheimer was an active entertainment producer, working on the films Kangaroo Jack (2003), Veronica Guerin (2003), King Arthur (2004), Glory Road (2006), Deja Vu (2006), Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) and G-Force (2009) for Disney Studios, and the TV shows Profiles from the Front Line (2003), Skin (2003), E-Ring (2005), Just Legal (2005), Close to Home (2005), Justice (2006), Eleventh Hour (2008), Dark Blue (2009) and The Forgotten (2009).

He is the creative force for franchise films. In 2003, he made a sequel to his "Bad Boys", Bad Boys II (2003) and Bad Boys for Life (2020), and he launched the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, starting with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), and spawning sequels like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) and the "National Treasure" franchise, comprising of two films National Treasure (2004) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007).

In 2007, he had to partner with MTV to create a game studio, and joined the ZeniMax board of directors. In 2009, he launched Jerry Bruckheimer Games, and by 2011 rumored to be worked on three titles, before it was shut down in 2013.

By the 2010s, he was in declining force, and his films Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010), The Lone Ranger (2013), 12 Strong (2018) and Gemini Man (2019) are turned out to be box office disappointments, and his TV shows Miami Medical (2010), Chase (2010), The Whole Truth (2010), Hostages (2013), Training Day (2017) and Council of Dads (2020) turned out to be failures after one season.

In 2013, he signed a deal with Paramount Pictures to produce follow-up films to "Top Gun" and "Beverly Hills Cop" and their deal with Disney ended. Three years later, he terminated its deal with Warner Bros. Television and a year later signed with CBS Television Studios. His minor box office success rolled in with Deliver Us from Evil (2014). His only big TV hits came in from the decade were Lucifer (2016) and L.A.'s Finest (2019).

Bruckheimer was named as one of the investors of a proposed sports arena in Las Vegas, and had been rumored to be the leading choice by the National Hockey League (NHL) to own an expansion hockey team that would play in the arena. Bruckheimer was also named as one of the investors of a proposed Seattle-based NHL expansion team whose application was submitted in early 2018. The NHL Board of Governors voted to approve the team, named the Seattle Kraken, on December 4, 2018, which will start play in the 2021-22 season. Jerry Bruckheimer was part of an investment group that also included Tim Leiweke (Oak View Group) and David Bonderman (minority owner NBA's Boston Celtics).

He is currently on post-production on the sequel to his 1986 film "Top Gun", Top Gun: Maverick (2022) for Paramount Pictures.

Philip A. Lord is an American filmmaker, producer and writer who collaborates with Christopher Miller. They both worked on Clone High, a cult classic animated sci-fi teen comedy show, The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Into the Spider-Verse is considered one of the best animated films of the 2010s and won Best Animated Feature.

Christopher Miller is an American filmmaker, producer and writer who collaborates with Philip A. Lord. They both worked on Clone High, a cult classic animated sci-fi teen comedy show, The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Into the Spider-Verse is considered one of the best animated films of the 2010s and won Best Animated Feature.

Zak Penn's career began as a screenwriter when he sold his first script, Last Action Hero, at the age of twenty-three. Since then, Penn has become known for his work on numerous films based on Marvel comics, including X-Men 2 and X-Men: The Last Stand, The Incredible Hulk, and The Avengers. He has also dabbled in other genres, writing scripts for disparate films such as P.C.U., Behind Enemy Lines and Suspect Zero.

Penn's shift into independent cinema began when he collaborated with his idol, Werner Herzog, on the script for Rescue Dawn. Penn directed and co-starred with Herzog in Incident at Loch Ness, his award-winning "hoax" documentary about the legendary director's attempts to make a film about the equally legendary monster. The Grand, Penn's second completely improvised film, was his third film with Herzog, and featured an eclectic cast including Woody Harrelson, David Cross, Ray Romano, Cheryl Hines, Dennis Farina and Gabe Kaplan.

In addition, Penn co-wrote the original story for Antz and produced the animated film Osmosis Jones. His first foray into television was the critically acclaimed SyFy Channel original series "Alphas" starring David Strathairn. His most recent endeavor was video game documentary Atari: Game Over, which recently premiered on Xbox Live.

David Hayter was born on February 6, 1969 in Santa Monica, California, USA as David Bryan Hayter. He is known for writing the screenplays to X-Men (2000), X-Men 2 (2003), and Watchmen (2009). He is best known as the voice of Solid Snake in the English versions of the Metal Gear Solid franchise.

Stevie Wermers was born on 28 January 1966 in Ventura County, California, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Prep & Landing (2009), Brother Bear (2003) and Zootopia (2016). She has been married to Joel Skelton since 26 May 2002.

Kevin Deters joined Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1996, working in the clean-up and story departments on such films as "Mulan," "Tarzan," "Lilo & Stitch," "Brother Bear," and "Chicken Little." Deters made his directorial and writing debut with the 2007 animated short, "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater".

Deters went on to write and direct three award-winning "Prep & Landing" holiday specials for ABC television, and the short film, "The Ballad of Nessie" with creative partner Stevie Wermers-Skelton. 2017 saw another directorial achievement with the theatrical and television release of the holiday featurette "Olaf's Frozen Adventure" alongside producer Roy Conli, who produced the Academy Award®-winning "Big Hero 6."

Don Dougherty is known for Winnie the Pooh (2011), Hercules (1997) and Pocahontas (1995).

Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight creative relationship with her sister Lilly. After the siblings dropped out of college, they started a construction business and wrote screenplays. Their 1995 script, Assassins (1995), was made into a movie, leading to a Warner Bros contract. After that time, the Wachowskis devoted themselves to their movie careers. In 2012, during interviews for Cloud Atlas and in her acceptance speech for the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award, Lana spoke about her experience of being a transgender woman, sacrificing her much cherished anonymity out of a sense of responsibility. Lana is known to be extremely well-read, loves comic books and exploring ideas of imaginary worlds, and was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in creating Cloud Atlas.

Dan Harris is a writer/director and photographer with a diverse range of projects. As of June 2015, he's in development as the creator of an outer space television series, 'Manifest Destiny', with Legendary Pictures, and 'The Family' with Sony Pictures, SYFY Network, and producer Neal Moritz. Dan is also attached to direct his screenplays of the films 'Eternica' and 'Speech and Debate', the latter based on Pulitzer Prize nominee Stephen Karam's hit off-Broadway play, and is in pre-production with Sycamore Pictures. Recently, he also co-wrote the upcoming film X-Men: Apocalypse, which is the third X-Men feature film he's worked on.

At the age of 22, Dan co-wrote the blockbuster X2: X-Men United, and recently did revisions on X-Men: Days of Future Past, which grossed $415 and over $700 million, respectively. Also, with writing partner Michael Doughtery, Dan co-wrote the blockbuster "Superman Returns", directed by Bryan Singer. The film starred Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Eva Marie Saint, Frank Langella and Parker Posey and was released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 2006 and grossed $450 million worldwide.

Harris made his feature film writing/directing debut with "Imaginary Heroes," a funny and poignant coming of age story that starred Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Emile Hirsch and Michelle Williams. The film had its world premiere as a Gala Presentation at the 29th Toronto Film Festival and was given a special recognition for excellence in filmmaking from the National Board of Review.

After being honored as one of Variety's top 10 screenwriters to watch, Dan also wrote 'Skullduggery Pleasant' for director David Dobkin and produced Michael Dougherty's 'Trick R Treat'. Additionally, Harris and Dougherty wrote the screenplays for "Ender's Game", and the upcoming films "Logan's Run," "Charlie Chan", and "Carpe Demon" for director Chris Columbus. Together, they have written the final drafts of 'Wanted' and 'Fantastic Four'. Also with Dougherty and Singer, Harris wrote the Superman Returns prequel comic books for DC Comics.

Dan's photography has been published by New York fashion and arts landmark Visionaire three times (the Magic, World, and Fairytale editions) and he was honored to finally be in front of the camera as a part of Vanity Fair's prestigious Hollywood Portfolio in 2005. While he was still in college, Harris' short film "Urban Chaos Theory" won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at the NoDance Film Festival, and the following winter, his short film, "The Killing of Candice Klein," played to rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival. Upon graduation from Columbia University, Harris won the Louis B. Sudler prize in the arts for his screenplay, "America's Least Wanted". It was the only time a student in the film department has been given the award.

Dan was raised in Pennsylvania. When he was a seventeen year old production assistant, he was accidentally hit with a tennis ball thrown by Woody Allen. He's wanted to be a filmmaker ever since.

Yuji Naka was born on 17 September 1965 in Osaka, Japan. He is a writer and producer, known for ChuChu Rocket! (1999), Burning Rangers (1998) and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (2001).

Hirokazu Yasuhara was born on 12 October 1965 in Japan. He is a writer and director, known for Sonic 3 & Knuckles (1994), Two Worlds Collide: Chaotic Fusion and Fatal Labyrinth (1991).

Naoto Ohshima was born on 26 February 1964 in Osaka, Japan. He is a writer and producer, known for Burning Rangers (1998), Two Worlds Collide: Chaotic Fusion and Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut (2003).

Marvin Andrew Sturmer is an American singer, composer and producer from Los Angeles, California. He was the lead singer of the 1990s pop band Jellyfish. He helped co-write various songs for the JPop band Puffy AmiYumi. He also composed music for animated films in the Tom & Jerry and Scooby-Doo franchises.

Born in Adelaide, South Australia, Robert J Kral moved to Los Angeles in 1991 where he attended the prestigious USC Scoring for Motion Pictures & TV Program. He is best known for scoring 5 seasons of the hit TV series Angel, and for his super hero scores for WB animation such as Justice League: Dark, Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, Injustice, Superman Doomsday, Batman: Assault on Arkham, Green Lantern: First Flight and others. He is also well known for scoring Scooby-Doo! TV series Mystery Incorporated and many Scooby-Doo! Animated features.

Lia Sargent was born on 20 February 1957 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress and casting director, known for Perfect Blue (1997), The Big O (1999) and Ghost in the Shell (1995).

Andrea Romano has been casting and directing voices for over 31 years. Her credits include a 5 1/2 year stint as casting director at Hanna Barbera, directing Disney's DuckTales (1987), Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers (1989) and some seasons of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1988), many of Universal's Land Before Time home videos, Warner Bros. Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), Animaniacs (1993), Pinky and the Brain (1995), as well as Batman: The Animated Series (1992), Superman: The Animated Series (1996), Batman Beyond (1999), Teen Titans (2003), and Justice League (2001). Also for Warner Bros., Andrea directed 23 direct to video films in conjunction with DC Comics and Warner Home Video. Her other credits include 3 seasons of "The Boondocks (2005)" for Sony, "Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)", The Legend of Korra (2012), El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (2007), and SpongeBob SquarePants (1999) for Nickelodeon, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)", "Turbo FAST (2013)", "The Adventures of Puss in Boots (2015)" and Voltron: Legendary Defender (2016).