| Avi Lerner | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 13, 1947 Haifa, Israel |
| Occupation | Film producer |
Avinoam Lerner (born 13 October 1947) is an Israeli-born film producer, primarily of American action movies.
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Lerner originally worked in movie theaters in Tel Aviv, but soon re-located to South Africa, where he produced several films in that country and also owned a chain of movie theaters there until he re-located once again to Los Angeles in the early 1990s. In 1991, he served as President of the independent production/distribution company, Global Pictures.
Lerner founded two production companies, Nu Image and Millennium Films with Trevor Short, Danny Dimbort, and Danny Lerner. The companies have a varied output, though the vast majority are action films. Most of the action films Avi produces are filmed in Bulgaria, where he owns a studio.
Nu Image & Millennium Films bought independent film studio First Look Studios and have restructured the organization to distribute their specialty films.
Nu Image has recently produced the 2010 family film Cool Dog with First Look, as Millennium Films recently produced Drive Angry.
The bulk of Lerner's films featured action stars who were at their peak in the late 1980s-1990s: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, and Chuck Norris, usually released as direct-to-video. Lerner produced Rambo starring Sylvester Stallone, and Righteous Kill starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino for Millennium Films and Emmett Furla Films.[1] He produced The Expendables, directed by Stallone.
Other features Lerner has had a hand in include: End Game, starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and James Woods; Edison, starring Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Justin Timberlake, 16 Blocks, The Black Dahlia, The Wicker Man, and even Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, starring Nicolas Cage. He is also listed as a producer in the thriller Trespass.