About Jim Steele
Jim Steele has been in the film business for 25 years. His current producing projects include: "Running With The Devil" starring Lawrence Fishburne, Nick Cage, Adam Goldberg, Clifton Collins and Leslie Bibb; Cut Throat City directed by RZA and starring Eiza Gonzalez, Wesley Snipes, Ethan Hawke, Terence Howard, Isaiah Washington and TI; Tales From The Hood 2 directed by Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott and Executive Produced by Spike Lee; Nostalgia directed by Mark Pellington and starring Jon Hamm, Bruce Dern and Ellen Burstyn.Steele's first job in Hollywood was at Hemdale Films in 1988 as a Director of Business Affairs & International Sales. At Hemdale, he was involved in films including: "Last Emperor," "Platoon," "At Close Range," "Terminator" and many others.In 1990, he left Hemdale to run Paul Bartel's North Street Films where he was involved in films including "Scenes from A Class Struggle in Beverly Hills" and the "Life and Death of Andy Warhol" with Gus Van Sant.In 1991 Steele co-produced "Made In The USSR" (starring Frank Whaley and Roman Polanski). "Made In The USSR" was the first Hollywood film shot in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.In 1992, he joined Working Title Films as VP Production & Acquisitions. At Working Title, he was involved in films including: "Four Weddings & A Funeral," "Romeo Is Bleeding," "Bob Roberts" and "Map of The Human Heart." He then produced Working Title's black western "Posse" directed by Mario Van Peebles.In 1994, he co-produced "Love & A 45" with Renee Zelwigger.In 1995, Steele joined Live Entertainment / Artisan as Sr. VP Production and Acquisitions where he was involved in films including: "Bad Lieutenant," "Reservoir Dogs," "Killing Zoe," "Little Odessa," "Usual Suspects," "Trees Lounge" and many others. Steele also produced Mark Anthony & Tom Berenger's "The Substitute" and the Charlie Sheen sci-FYI "The Arrival" and "Café Society" directed by Raymond DeFelitta.In 2000 Steele was hired as president of Internet film company ShowBizData.com. At ShowBizdata Steele produced and acquired over 300 hours of web TV and created partnerships with Sundance Film Festival the Cannes Film Market, Yahoo and Microsoft. A highlight of this work was the staging of multimedia exhibits at the Cannes Film Festival and Sundance in 2000 & 2001. The exhibits received international media attention and established Steele as a pioneer in digital cinema and large screen electronic distribution.In 2002, Steele built the world's first digital cinema network with partner Microsoft. The network connected 45 of the top art houses in America with digital cinema infrastructure designed by Steele's company Digital Cinema Solutions (DCS). From 2002 and 2005, DCS digitally distributed over 50 films theatrically including: "BMW Film shorts," "Standing In The Shadows of Motown," "Saraband," "Step Into Liquid," "Russian Ark," "Fog Of War." DCS partners included: Sony Classics, Lions Gate, Magnolia, Paramount Classics and many others.In 2005, Steele sold DCS and started Filmray, Inc. One of Filmray's first clients was Mark Cuban's Landmark Theatres. In 2005, Steele oversaw Landmark's first digital cinema deployments launched with Steven Soderberg's film Bubble. Bubble made history as the first film released on DVD and in theaters simultaneously. A partial list of other Filmray clients include Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, New Line Cinemas, Qube Cinemas, Living Room Theatres, Panasonic, Sony, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Fi...