Harve Bennett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2006) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Harve Bennett (born Harve Bennett Fischman on August 17, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American television and film producer and screenwriter. He is best known for producing and writing or co-writing the second through fifth films in the Star Trek film series.
Contents |
[edit] Early years
As a young boy, Bennett was one of the kids on the radio program Quiz Kids, which introduced him to the field of show business. By the time Bennett reached college age, the radio business - aside from music radio - was dwindling, and so he turned to the world of film. He entered the University of California, Los Angeles and graduated from their famous film school. Following his graduation from college, Bennett began his career as a production executive. He first worked at CBS in New York City and later moved to the programming department of ABC. At ABC he rose to become Vice-President of Programming for a time.
[edit] Move to production
Following his time with ABC, Bennett left to move into the production side of the entertainment industry. His first project was to develop a television show with producer Aaron Spelling called The Mod Squad, which Bennett produced for three years.
Following The Mod Squad, Bennett moved to Universal Studios where he produced a variety of television series and miniseries. The best known of these series are probably The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. Other series and mini-series he produced at Universal include Rich Man, Poor Man, The Invisible Man (1975 series), and Gemini Man.
Bennett then moved to Screen Gems where he continued producing for television. He projects at Screen Gems included the series Salvage 1 and the mini-series The Jesse Owens Story and A Woman Called Golda (which was Ingrid Bergman's final role).
[edit] Star Trek
While working at Screen Gems, Bennett was also brought to Paramount Pictures to work in their television division producing TV shows. Only a few weeks into his television deal, he was called to a meeting with then top executives of Paramount Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, along with Charles Bludhorn who was then head of Paramount's parent Gulf+Western. Bludhorn, dissatisfied with the results of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, was looking for someone new to take over the next Star Trek film.
According to Bennett, Bludhorn asked him what he thought of the first Star Trek film and, upon Bennett's answer that he found it to be boring, Bludhorn asked him if he could make a better picture and if he could do it for less than $45 million (the pricetag of the first film). When Bennett said that he could, Bludhorn said "do it" and he had the job.
To prepare for the job of producing a Star Trek film, Bennett first screened all 79 episodes of the original Star Trek series in a projection room at Paramount. He was particularly drawn to an episode entitled "Space Seed" which featured a young Ricardo Montalban in the role of genetically enhanced supervillain Khan Noonien Singh. At the conclusion of the episode, Khan and his followers are exiled to an uninhabited planet, and Kirk and Spock wonder what will become of them. This gave Bennett the "hook" he was looking for, and led him to develop a sequel to the episode.
Bennett's idea formed the beginnings of what would become Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Bennett himself developed the original story premise, and then worked with screenwriter Jack B. Sowards on the early drafts of the screenplay. Nicholas Meyer was later introduced to Bennett and completed the final drafts of the script, as well as directing the film with Bennett as executive producer and Robert Sallin as producer. Star Trek II proved to be an enormous success, both in terms of the box office receipts and the fan response.
Following on the success of Star Trek II, Bennett served as producer on the next three Star Trek films: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - which stands to this day as the most successful of the Star Trek films - and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. In addition to serving as producer, Bennett also wrote Star Trek III, co-wrote the story and screenplay for Star Trek IV, and co-wrote the story for Star Trek V. Bennett also made cameo appearances in Star Trek III (as the voice of the flight recorder) and Star Trek V, (as a Starfleet admiral identified only as "Bob" who gives Captain Kirk his orders).
Following Star Trek V, Bennett developed an idea for a sixth Star Trek film that would take a different approach from the previous films. Titled "The Academy Years," it would have focused on the characters of Kirk and Spock when they were much younger and cadets at Starfleet Academy. It would have delved into the early relationships between these characters, and shown how they developed such a close friendship over the years. While William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy would have had cameos at the beginning and end of the film to "bookend" the story in flashback form, new actors would have portrayed most of the roles in the film, including the young Kirk and Spock.
Although Paramount was initially enthusiastic about the idea, they were ultimately leery of producing a Star Trek film without the established actors that fans had come to know and love. Also, Martin Davis who at the time was the head of Gulf & Western, wanted a film featuring the original cast to mark Star Trek's 25th anniversary in 1991. Paramount offered Bennett the opportunity to produce this film with the original cast, even offering to produce his academy film afteward, but Bennett declined citing multiple reasons including a lack of story ideas for the requested film and the rushed time frame in which the film would have to be completed in order to coincide with Star Trek's 25th anniversary.
This marked the end of Bennett's association with the Star Trek franchise, and shortly thereafter he left Paramount.
[edit] Later works
Since producing the Star Trek films, Bennett wrote the TV movie Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232 (1992). He co-created and produced the science-fiction television series Time Trax (1993-1995), and produced the animated miniseries Invasion America (1998).
Bennett is now "semi-retired," though he has expressed in interviews that he still has a desire to see his Starfleet Academy movie produced, and would be willing to return to produce it. In fact, he has said that he has had conversations with executives at Paramount as recently as a few years ago about possibly producing it but, as yet, nothing has come of these discussions.[citation needed]
