Dicaprio thanked Arnon Milchan for the Revenant - Israeli Billionaire, Spy, Arms Dealer

Milchan’s mark on Hollywood is almost comically huge. An Israeli billionaire, Milchan began producing films in the 1970s. The only way to really understand his influence is to view the full breadth of his filmography, which starts with The King of Comedy and goes on to include Once Upon a Time in America, Brazil, Pretty Woman, JFK, Natural Born Killers, Free Willy, Heat, Tin Cup, L.A. Confidential, Fight Club, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Fantastic Mr. Fox, 12 Years a Slave, Birdman, Gone Girl, The Big Short, and The Revenant.


So, Milchan’s fingerprints are on a raft of Oscar-winning movies and one of the highest-profile relationships in the world. Not bad for a financier, right? It gets better. As suggested by the name of that biography, rumors dogged Milchan that his money hadn’t just come from the inherited chemical company he’d turned into a titan, or the myriad other businesses he acquired afterward. A 2000 profile by Los Angeles Magazine collected many of the reports from media and people in Hollywood that Milchan dealt arms for the Israeli government:

Throughout the 1970s, ’80s and even up until the Gulf War in 1991, Milchan was Israel’s foremost weapons procurer, brokering deals for such prized super weapons as the Hawk missile and the famous Scud-foil of the Gulf War, the Patriot — “everything from nuclear triggers to rocket fuel to guidance systems,” according to NBC News.

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