George Miller (producer)

George (Miliotis) Miller (born March 3, 1945), is an Academy-Award winning Greek Australian film and television screenwriter, director and producer. He is probably most well known for his work on the Mad Max movies, but has been involved in a wide range of projects.

Miller is the older brother of producer Bill Miller. He should not be confused with the Scottish Australian director George T. Miller (who directed The Man From Snowy River, among many other feature films.)

Biography
George Miliotis was born in Chinchilla, Queensland, to Greek immigrant parents: Dimitri (Jim) Castrisios Miliotis, from Kythera, and Evangelia (Angela) Balloyoulo. The Balloyoulo family were Greek refugees from Asia Minor, while Dimitri was from the  Greek Island of Kythera  and he anglicised his surname to Miller when he emigrated to Australia. The couple married and settled in Chinchilla and had four sons. The first two, non-identical twins were George and John, and later, Chris and Bill (Vassilli).

George served as an altar boy at the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint George, Rose Bay. He attended Sydney Boys High School, then studied medicine at the University of New South Wales with his twin brother John. While in his final year at Med School (1971), George and his younger brother Chris made a one minute short film, that won them first prize in a student competition. In 1971, George attended a Film Workshop at Melbourne University where he met fellow student, Byron Kennedy. In 1972, Miller completed his residency at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, spending his time-off crewing on short experimental films. Miller formed an irrepressible bond with fellow film fanatic Byron Kennedy. The pair collaborated in numerous works since.

Miller wrote and directed the Mad Max movies starring Mel Gibson (Mad Max, The Road Warrior, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome); co-wrote Babe and wrote and directed its sequel; and Lorenzo's Oil. He also directed The Witches of Eastwick, starring Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer and he directed the fourth segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, which was hailed as the best in most critical reviews.

With Phillip Noyce, Miller co-produced and co-directed two acclaimed miniseries for Australian television,: The Dismissal (1983) and The Cowra Breakout (1984).

Miller's role as producer of Flirting, Dead Calm and the TV mini-series Bangkok Hilton and Vietnam, all starring Nicole Kidman, was instrumental in the early development of her career.

He spent 18 months in Sydney, Australia directing the computer-animated film Happy Feet, a musical epic about the life of penguins in Antarctica. The Warner Brothers-produced film was released in November 2006, and is Australia's largest animated film project, with a crew of over 300 artists and technicians at the visual effects house Animal Logic. As well as being a runaway box office success, Happy Feet has also brought Miller his fourth Academy Award nomination, and his first win in the category of Best Animated Feature.

Miller has recently been confirmed by Warner Bros. as the director of Justice League of America, a large-scale superhero epic featuring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and a host of others. The film will reportedly showcase an elaborate blending of live-action, motion-capture, and CGI animation.

Awards and recognition

 * 1999: Received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of New South Wales
 * 2007: Received The Queensland - United States Personal Achievement Award at the Queensland Expatriate Awards at the Rainbow Room in New York
 * 2007 (April): Awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by the Australian Film Television and Radio School..

References and Further reading

 * Turner, Brock (2007) (Cover page) 'George Miller Film's $1 billion man' (page 27) - 'Curious George' in The Australian Financial Review Magazine, May 2007 issue (Wealth Issue). pp.26-38
 * UNSWorld (2007) 'Bring on the dancing penguins' in UNSWorld, Issue 6, May 2007, pp.14-15)