Jon Landau, an Oscar-winning producer and longtime collaborator of director James Cameron who helped bring to life three of the highest-grossing films of all time, “Titanic” and the two “Avatar” movies, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 63. His death was announced by his family in a statement released by Disney Entertainment.
It did not give a cause of death. Landau and Cameron’s decades-long collaboration made box office history. The first film they made together, “Titanic,” became the first movie to gross more than $1 billion globally after its 1997 release.
Its total earnings record, $1.84 billion, was broken by the next film they made together, the science-fiction epic “Avatar” (2009). “Titanic” was nominated for 14 Oscars and won 11, including for best picture, an award Cameron and Landau shared.
“I can’t act and I can’t compose and I can’t do visual effects, so I guess that’s why I’m producing,” Landau said in his acceptance speech. Jon Landau was born July 23, 1960, in New York City. His first exposure to filmmaking was through his parents, Ely and Edie Landau, who together produced ambitious independent films for a mass audience, including adaptations of stage plays by Eugene O’Neill, Edward Albee and Bertolt Brecht.
Many of these adaptations were released through a subscription service that the Landaus created called the American Film Theater, which gave audiences access to regular screenings of movie versions of plays. Landau s.
