Jeremy Thomas, Oscar-Winning Producer, Dies at 77

The Guardian, Variety, Deadline and other outlets report that Jeremy Thomas, producer of The Last Emperor and Sexy Beast, died Friday in Oxfordshire.

Jeremy Thomas, the British independent producer behind The Last Emperor, Sexy Beast, and David Cronenberg's Crash, died on Friday, September 11, at the age of 77. He died just three days before his final production, Takashi Miike's Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, was due to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 14.

Thomas was not a scheduled figure in world cinema — he was one of its essential rebels. Deadline reports he suffered from cancer in his later years yet continued working to the very end, with two of his productions — Werner Herzog's Bucking Fastard and Miike's Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo — in the fall festival circuit as news broke. Tributes quoted across outlets describe a man of uncommon taste and generosity: Terry Gilliam told Variety that Thomas was "fearless in getting some very unlikely films financed and released," while Luca Guadagnino said "the canon of his work is unmatched." Andrew Macdonald, the Trainspotting producer, called him "a rebel with taste."

The numbers in the source pack tell the story plainly. According to Deadline, Thomas's crowning achievement was financing Bertolucci's The Last Emperor independently; the film swept nine Oscars in 1987, including Best Picture, and became a commercial success. The Hollywood Reporter notes he also won a BAFTA for that film and received a European Film Award for European Achievement in World Cinema in 2006. His roll call of directors, as Deadline's obituary lists, includes Bernardo Bertolucci, David Cronenberg, Nagisa Oshima, Nicolas Roeg, Jerzy Skolimowski, Jim Jarmusch, Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Glazer, Ben Wheatley, and Matteo Garrone — a global catalogue of auteurs few producers could ever claim.

Thomas founded Recorded Picture Company and later co-founded the sales firm HanWay Films, building infrastructure that independent filmmakers around the world relied on, according to Deadline and Variety. His death leaves a structural hole: as Deadline notes, his famously independent financing of The Last Emperor proved that prestige auteur cinema could be both artistically ambitious and commercially viable. Stephen Woolley, a fellow producer, told The Guardian that Thomas was "a massively undervalued genius and necessary rebel in our industry" who "sided with the subversives and movie anarchists." Mike Downey, a former European Film Academy chair, called his legacy "incalculable" in remarks to The Guardian.

Thomas was born into the film business in July 1949 in London, the son of director Ralph Thomas and nephew of Gerald Thomas, who directed the Carry On films, according to The Hollywood Reporter and The Guardian. Deadline reports he was a Cannes fixture for decades, driving down from London each year and conducting business from the same Carlton hotel suite.

The tributes and retrospectives are only beginning. Deadline reports his post-production slate also includes Becoming Capa. Variety notes Thomas was a key interviewee in Luca Guadagnino's new documentary on Bertolucci, Joie de Vivre, which just premiered in Venice. The industry he shaped — one that valued taste, risk, and internationalism over franchise logic — now has to decide how much of his model can survive without him.