Career
In 1966, he met film director Peter Bogdanovich at a birthday party for the daughter of director John Ford, a friend of his father. Marshall volunteered to work on Bogdanovich's first film, Targets (1968), which became his apprenticeship in film production, as he assumed various productions roles, even appearing in a bit part. Following graduation from UCLA, Marshall spent the next two years working in Aspen and Marina del Rey, as a waiter/guitar player at "The Randy Tar," a steak and lobster restaurant. While traveling through Europe in March 1970, he received another call from Bogdanovich, offering him a position on The Last Picture Show (1971). Three days later he arrived in Archer City, Texas, doubling as location manager and actor in this seminal film. Under Bogdanovich's guidance, Marshall would work his way up from producer's assistant to associate producer on five more films. He branched out to work with Martin Scorsese as a line producer on the music documentary The Last Waltz (1978) and as an associate producer on director Walter Hill's gritty crime thriller, The Driver (1978). The following year, Marshall earned his first executive producer credit on Hill's cult classic street gang movie, The Warriors (1979) and first producer credit on George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). He continued to collaborate with Bogdanovich, completing their tenth film together, Orson Welles' unfinished The Other Side of the Wind in 2018.
In 1981, together with his future wife Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg, he co-founded Amblin Entertainment, one of the industry's most productive and profitable production companies. As a producer, Marshall has received five Oscar nominations for Best Picture for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Seabiscuit (2003), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Color Purple (1985) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
During the 1980s and 1990s, Marshall served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute.
His feature film directing debut was the thriller Arachnophobia (1990), starring Jeff Daniels. In 1991, he and Kennedy created The Kennedy/Marshall Company and began producing their own films. Marshall directed the company's first film, Alive (1993), about a rugby team struggling to survive in the snow after their plane crashes in the Andes. Next, he directed Congo (1995), based on Michael Crichton's novel, followed by Eight Below (2006), an adventure about loyalty and the bonds of friendship set in the extreme wilderness of Antarctica. In 1998, he directed the episode "Mare Tranquilitatis", for the Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. As part of ESPN's 30 for 30 series, Marshall directed a documentary about Olympian Johann Olav Koss entitled Right to Play (2012). (the name of Koss's humanitarian organization). Marshall stated that the documentary, broadcast in 2012, sought to capture not only Koss' sporting career and the ideals behind his nonprofit organization, but also his "drive and how it has changed the world."
From 1991 to 2012, The Kennedy/Marshall Company produced many films, including The Sixth Sense, Signs, Seabiscuit, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, War Horse, Lincoln, Sully, the Bourne series and the feature documentary The Armstrong Lie (2013). Since taking over as sole principal of the company, Marshall has broadened its slate beyond feature films to include television, documentaries and Broadway musicals. Those include the summer blockbuster series Jurassic World, Orson Welles's final film, The Other Side of the Wind, and the Emmy Award-nominated documentaries Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, Laurel Canyon and McCartney 3,2,1. In 2020, he directed the Hélder Guimarães virtual magic shows The Present and The Future for the Geffen Stayhouse, both which had sold-out runs and The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, which was nominated for six Emmys. In 2022, he produced the Tony Award-winning musical A Strange Loop and co-directed the Grammy-winning documentary Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story. His 2023 productions included Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Good Night, Oscar, starring Tony Winner Sean Hayes. In 2024, Marshall directed The Hope Theory at Geffen Playhouse with Hélder Guimarães, The Beach Boys documentary for Disney+ and produced Twisters for Universal Pictures.
