The 50 Smartest People In Hollywood

8. PETER RICE

AGE 41
JOB TITLE President, Fox Searchlight
SMART BECAUSE His impeccable taste and savvy business skills have transformed Searchlight into the gold standard for studio specialty divisions. Together with distribution chief Stephen Gilula and marketing maven Nancy Utley, Rice sees the profit potential in unconventional films and turns low-budget indies into genre sensations (28 Days Later), culture-shifting comedies (Napoleon Dynamite), acting showcases (The Last King of Scotland), and Oscar bait (Sideways, this year's Once and Juno). No indie division is more consistently successful with a more eclectic slate, and Searchlight's marketing concepts — e.g., using that now-iconic yellow for Little Miss Sunshine's posters — are envied (and copied) industry-wide. Rice has also navigated the corporate culture of Twentieth Century Fox with grace, keeping a low media profile and letting his label — and his films — get the light.
COMPANY MAN He began working at Fox as a summer intern in 1989.

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