Title
Executive Producer, Amelia and Michael
Richard Johns is one of the UK’s most innovative and prolific producers of film and television.
After 5 years learning the producing trade from the ground up, making corporate films and commercials, his TV work started in 1992 with regional ITV productions for Tyne Tees, Yorkshire, Granada and Border Television, working with partner Bharat Nalluri, now a leading British film and TV director (Spooks, Hustle, Life on Mars, Tsunami, and more recently Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day). The pair co-founded and ran leading British indie company Pilgrim Films in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Richard's feature film work started in 1995 with no-budget comic thriller Killing Time, directed by Nalluri, snapped up by Columbia TriStar in a battle with Miramax and in which Richard discovered studentwriter Neil Marshall, now a major British film-maker in his own right.
Johns went on to produce dramatic thriller Downtime in 1996 with director Nalluri and new writer Caspar Berry, in partnership with Stephen Woolley and Nik Powell’s Scala Films and Channel Four Films.
Hollywood called next in the form of Nicolas Cage’s new production shingle Saturn Films with the daring cult project Shadow of the Vampire with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe, the movie directed by E. Elias Merhige and written by Steven Katz that garnered two Oscar nominations and worldwide acclaim.
Richard was then asked to run a series of productions including Orlando Bloom vehicle The Calcium Kid for Working Title, Jennifer Love Hewitt-Dougray Scott romance The Truth About Love, and UK-Australian co-production Like Minds with Toni Collette and spotting the talent of up-and-coming young British actors Eddie Redmayne and Tom Sturridge.
More recently Johns developed and produced the powerful drama Dangerous Parking from the cult Stuart Browne novel, directed by and starring Peter Howitt and winning Best Director at Tokyo 2007.
In 2007 Richard founded Think Tank Films in London to produce a select slate of movies and television projects with powerful storytelling and strong talent at their heart, creating stuff that makes people laugh, cry and wonder.
Richard is past chair of the New Producers Alliance and board member of BAFTA North and the Northern Production Fund, and is a member of BAFTA and Ateliers du Cinema Europeen.
Filmography
Amelia and Michael [Exec Prod]
(UK, 2007, 10mins, short)
Like Minds [Prod]
(UK, 2006, 110mins, feature)
Fat Slags [Line Prod]
(UK, 2004, 110mins, feature)
The Calcium Kid [Co-Prod]
(UK, 2004, 89mins, feature)
The Truth about Love [Line Prod]
(UK, 2004, 100mins, feature)
Shadow of the Vampire [Co-Prod]
(UK, 2000, 92mins, feature)
Killing Time [Prod]
(UK, 1998, 88mins, feature)
Downtime [Prod]
(UK, 1997, 90mins, feature)
Driven [Prod]
(UK, 1994, 30mins, TV Drama)