In 1986 the Coca-Cola Co. hired Puttnam as chief of production for its Columbia Pictures division. Puttnam's reputation was for modestly budgeted productions which achieved critical acclaim and moderate box-office receipts, while dealing with socially and politically sensitive subjects. With an impressive network to support his ambitions in Hollywood, Puttnam created enormous expectations. He promised to keep costs down with leaner, lower-budgeted fare that would also serve an international rather than simply American audience. He gave European filmmakers such as Emir Kusturica, Jirí Menzel, Doris Dörrie and Bernardo Bertolucci the opportunity to exercise artistic approaches to filmmaking under the ægis of a product-oriented system.
Simultaneously, Puttnam demonstrated an aggressive candor. He announced that if someone wrote him a check for the $150 million that RAMBO would bring in at the box office, he still would not make that film. He would claim that remarks disparaging Bill Murray (star of the studio's smash hit GHOSTBUSTERS, 1984) were misunderstood, yet his statements were never designed to court talent agents, longtime Columbia producers such as Ray Stark (who is said to have been a prime mover in the "Dump Puttnam" movement) or the public itself, whose taste he disdained.
This Savonarola with an English accent was eventually deemed tiresome; even those who had hopes of succeeding through him were angered at a style that spelled doom. When Puttnam left Columbia with a $3 million golden parachute, he left behind colleagues made vulnerable by his arrogance. Whether a more politic Puttnam could have succeeded is a moot point. His productions were neither marketed nor distributed with care by his successors at Columbia, who had to restore peace.
Puttnam returned to England to resume film- and speech-making. "We in the arts and those who employ us have to regain a true sense of collective responsibility," he said in 1988. "I try to make films about morally accountable individuals, trying to hold true to their beliefs... What I find offensive in films like RAMBO is the illusion of an individual facing a complex world with nothing but his own brute force -- and prevailing, as though all we have to do for the triumph of moral virtue is to summon up the violent animal impulse that may well exist deep within all of us."
Other notable (non-nominated) producing credits include LISZTOMANIA (1975), FOXES (1980), MEMPHIS BELLE (1990), "The Josephine Baker Story" (TV) and MEETING VENUS (both 1991), BEING HUMAN (1993), WAR OF THE BUTTONS (1994), THE CONFESSIONAL (1995) and MY LIFE SO FAR (1999).
Awarded C.B.E. (Comander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 1982; knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1995; created a Life Peer in 1997.
Nominated for Best Picture 1978: MIDNIGHT EXPRESS - Producer at Casablanca-Filmworks (w. Alan Marshall)
Best Picture 1981: CHARIOTS OF FIRE - Producer at Enigma
Nominated for Best Picture 1984: THE KILLING FIELDS - Producer at Goldcrest/International Film Investors
Nominated for Best Picture 1986: THE MISSION - Producer at Warner Bros./Goldcrest/Kingsmere (w. Fernando Ghia)
4 nominations, 1 Award