Richard Potter

Richard Potter is a Writer, Producer and Studio Executive with over 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry. He has worked on both sides of the table as a studio executive and as a writer and producer. Richard leverages a wealth of knowledge from his executive days of producing and developing projects for studios to writing new scripts, creating content and serving as a consultant to studios, producers and distributors. A well-known industry leader, Richard prides himself on developing strong relationships and working collaboratively with writers, producers and executives. Richard began his career as Bob Weinstein's assistant at Miramax Films. While in that role, he created a plan to turn Dimension Films from an acquisitions label into a separate division to produce its own films. He presented his idea to Bob and Harvey Weinstein who were so impressed, they gave him the green-light to pursue this endeavor. His success made him the fastest promoted person in the company's history moving from assistant to running a division of the studio within six months. Within a year Dimension was out grossing Miramax and went on to became the biggest genre company in the world generating billions of dollars. Richard found the script that became Scream, convinced Wes Craven to direct it, and developed it into the juggernaut it is, becoming five films and a TV series. He turned the direct to video title God's Army into the theatrical film The Prophecy which launched its own franchise. At the same time, he developed legacy titles such as Halloween, Hellraiser, and Highlander into their biggest and most successful releases with Halloween H20, Hellraiser: Bloodline and Highlander: The Final Dimension. He turned those properties back into relevant and valuable franchises. In addition, he developed the English language versions of Jackie Chan's films turning such titles as Supercop and Operation Condor into domestic hits. During his time at Dimension, Richard earned several promotions, eventually reaching Senior Vice President of Production and Development. In this role, he led the development and production of the label's films and performed uncredited re-writes. Every film was profitable, making it one of the most successful genre divisions of any studio. Wes Craven commented that Richard was responsible for bringing back teen movies and getting people to respect genre films. Richard's projects at Dimension are still the most successful and valuable in its library. Richard left the company in 2000, so that he could pursue his own career interests in writing. He immediately sold a TV series to HBO called Diary Of A Car Salesman, and spent the next decade writing and selling pitches and screenplays to studios and production companies. He was also busy doing re-writes, being called on as a script doctor, and hired as a consultant. During this time, he was approached by Relativity Media, to consult on a project called The House at the End of the Street. His ideas and approach so impressed Relativity that they hired Richard as Executive Vice President of Production and Development to re-energize their production slate. Richard looked at current trends in television and recognized strategies that could be borrowed from the independent film world to help Relativity maximize their properties. Sourcing intellectual property from the literary and comic book communities, and from relationships developed over two decades, Richard brought in material with a wider appeal. Rather than viewing each potential project as either a movie or a TV show, Richard took a broader approach to view everything as content that could span all media and distribution types to provide unlimited opportunities and gain maximal value. At Relativity, Richard led the development & production of many projects, most of which did not reach fruition before the studio's bankruptcy. He found and developed some of the highest profile projects including Fletch Won & Lee Daniels' Demon House project. Just as he did at Dimension, Richard identified up and coming talent with major potential, like Mike Flannagan, who wrote and directed Oculus and Before I Wake, and is now one of the biggest genre directors in the world. His relationships with agents, managers, talent, and studios have never been more applicable in today's multiverse of producing opportunities. Richard left Relativity two months before the studio's collapse and is writing, producing and consulting again.