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Dylan Leiner, 33
Senior vice president, acquisitions and production
Sony Pictures Classics
The Sundance film festival ended Sunday, and Dylan Leiner spent the weeks before it training as if he were preparing for a marathon.
“You have to prepare yourself both physically and emotionally beforehand, because film festivals are so competitive and intense,” says Mr. Leiner, who used to play semiprofessional soccer.
His passion and devotion have spurred Mr. Leiner’s dramatic rise at one of New York’s most prestigious specialty film companies. A decade after starting at Sony Pictures Classics as an assistant, he now spends his days tracking thousands of film projects in differing stages of development around the world, snapping up the best ones to distribute or help produce. Many recent indie hits—The Spanish Prisoner, Talk to Her and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, to name a few—have his fingerprints all over them.
“He’s got a fantastic knowledge of films and is very interested in foreign cultures,” says Jeremy Thomas, a film producer. “It helps him in this business.”
Mr. Leiner, who grew up in Los Angeles, was immersed in the film business from an early age. He is the stepson of composer Miles Goodman, who scored popular movies like La Bamba and Footloose.
Still, he originally had no intention of following his stepfather into the industry. Instead, he planned to get his Ph.D. in American studies and work for a nonprofit. An internship with a film and TV production company after college changed his mind.
“I saw how the people involved in entertainment were actually having a greater influence on culture than the type of work the nonprofits do in Washington,” he says.