GRAHAM KING (Producer) has emerged as a formidable producer of both major motion pictures and independent features. At the 2007 Academy Awards King won a Best Picture Oscar for the ensemble crime thriller “The Departed.”
A winner of four Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, “The Departed” marked King’s third collaboration with director Martin Scorsese. In 2004, he produced Scorsese’s widely praised Howard Hughes biopic, “The Aviator,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, for which King earned an Academy Award nomination and won a BAFTA Award for Best Picture. He was also honored by the Producers Guild of America with a Golden Laurel Award for Producer of the Year. King had earlier been a co-executive producer on Scorsese’s epic drama “Gangs of New York,” starring DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz.
Under King’s first-look producing deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. he was a producer of the Academy Award nominated “Blood Diamond” as well as ‘The Departed” in 2006. King has a wide range of films in various stages of production and development with Warners including “Shantaram,” a Warner Bros., Infinitum Nihil and Plan B production to star Johnny Depp, “Sasha’s Story: The life and Death of a Russian Spy” also with Infinitum Nihil and “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” based on Brian Selznick’s best-selling book to name a few. King recently launched his independent production company GK Films and under this new banner is producing, alongside Scorsese, “The Young Victoria” starring Emily Blunt from a script written by Academy Award winner Julian Fellowes. Under GK Films, King will continue to foster projects with some of the industry’s leading creative talents, including Johnny Depp and his company, Infinitum Nihil.
King is also President and CEO of Initial Entertainment Group and under this banner served as an executive producer on such films as “The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys,” produced by and starring Jodie Foster; Michael Mann’s biographical drama “Ali,” starring Will Smith in the title role; and Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning ensemble drama “Traffic.” King went on to executive produce the television miniseries “Traffic,” for which he received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Miniseries.
A native of the United Kingdom, King moved to the United States in 1982 and soon after joined the international distribution department at Twentieth Century Fox. In 1987 King moved into international sales before forming Initial in 1995.
Trivia: He appears in The Departed, albeit only in a photo, as the deceased Jackie Costigan.
Graham King (born March 13 1985 in Mitchell's Plain, Western Cape) is a South African football (soccer) midfielder playing as left-winger for Premier Soccer League club Maritzburg United.
