Jennie Lew Tugend

Jennie Lew Tugend is a film veteran with over three decades in the Hollywood motion picture business. Her expertise bridges film and TV development, production financing, marketing and distribution. She has produced and co-produced some of the industry’s most memorable franchises: Free Willy, Lethal Weapon and HBO’s Tales From the Crypt.

In 2004, Tugend teamed with Producer Lauren C. Weissman to form Kadokawa Pictures USA (KPUSA), a subsidiary of entertainment giant Kadokawa Pictures and Kadokawa Shoten Publishing, Ltd in Tokyo to exploit Japanese entertainment library properties for adaptation and remakes in the English language for American audiences.

At KPUSA, Tugend & Weissman produced and co-financed One Missed Call, a 2008 Warner Bros. release and two episodes of Showtime’s “Master of Horror” TV series (Imprint with acclaimed director, Takashi Miike and Dream Cruise with director Norio Tsuruta).

Other films Tugend has produced include: Local Boys starring Mark Harmon, Return to Me starring David Duchovny and Minnie Driver, Free Willy, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home and Free Willy 3: The Rescue, Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2 and Lethal Weapon 3. She was also an executive producer on the Free Willy animation series for 2 years.