Steve Stark

Steve Stark is an award-winning television producer and studio executive with a legacy of hit and culture-moving series. During his career, Stark has been responsible for developing, overseeing and/or producing over 3300 episodes of television. Stark has served in senior development & current positions at three major studios (Paramount, Columbia TriStar & Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) as well as an Executive Producer on multiple series for Universal Studios, Paramount Studios, 21st Century Fox and now for MGM Studios. Stark was President of MGM Television for nine years before recently departing to launch his own production Company: TOLUCA PICTURES in May of 2021. When he first joined MGM, it was just reemerging from bankruptcy and Stark was tasked with rebooting and then relaunching MGM Television. He subsequently launched MGM's multiple network-defining and Emmy & Golden Globe award-winning scripted series including: The Handmaid's Tale for Hulu (which broke ground by making Hulu the first Streaming Platform to ever win the Emmy Award for Best Drama series & brought MGM its first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 30 years; FX's Fargo (which brought MGM its first-ever Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series; Vikings - History's #1 scripted series & a global juggernaut in over 170 countries; Teenwolf - MTV's long-running #1 scripted series; Four Weddings and a Funeral - Hulu's premiere limited series; And 3 critically-acclaimed series: Get Shorty, (starring Chris O'Dowd & Ray Romano); Perpetual Grace LTD (starring Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsley); and Condor (all for EPIX). At his new company TOLUCA PICTURES, Stark continues his ongoing partnership with MGM, Executive Producing those award-winning signature series he developed and launched during his run at the studio, including The Handmaid's Tale (created by Bruce Miller), FX's Fargo (created by Noah Hawley) Netflix's upcoming Vikings: Valhalla (created by Jeb Stuart) and Wednesday (created by Al Gough and Miles Millar and directed by Tim Burton). Toluca Pictures is also in production on a new series for Amazon: The Consultant (starring Oscar winner Christoph Waltz) and on its first documentary: Eichmann - The Devil Speaks that exposes the untold secrets behind Eichmann's infamous 1961 trial and Eichmann's missing recorded confessions which will be heard for the first time. In addition to these 6 series in production, Toluca Pictures currently has 14 new series in development at various platforms such as Netflix, Paramount+, FX, Epix, TNT, Hulu, Amazon, Peacock, Apple, HBO & HBO Max. Before joining MGM, Stark was President and Executive Producer of Steve Stark Productions, where he led the company to an overall deal with NBC/Universal Television. His slate of series included USA Network's Fairly Legal (created by Michael Sardo) in partnership with Universal Cable Productions, and the NBC series The Event (created by Nick Wauters) in association with Universal Television. He also developed and served as Executive Producer on the long-running CBS hit series Medium (created by Glenn Gordon Caron) starring Emmy winner Patricia Arquette. His development and producing credits also include The CW's The Game (created by Mara Brock Akil) and the U.S. adaptation of The Sketch Show, which he also Executive Produced while president of Kelsey Grammer's Grammnet Productions in their long partnership with Paramount Network Television. Stark had previously held the position of Executive Vice President of Development at Columbia Tri-Star Network Television, overseeing the development of drama, comedy and alternative programming where he developed Hack for CBS and Everwood for WB. He had also served as Senior Vice President, Current Programming at Paramount Network Television, where he shepherded multiple episodes of series beginning with the last season of Cheers that was followed by Frasier, JAG, Becker, Nash Bridges, Girlfriends, Duckman, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Star Trek: Voyager, Soul Food, Brooklyn Bridge, Seven Days, Clueless, The Untouchables, Now and Again and Sister, Sister, among many others. Prior to his run at Paramount, he worked as a producer and development executive for Al Burton Productions at Universal Studios where he wrote and produced the syndicated series: The New Lassie and served as a Production Consultant on the syndicated hit: Charles in Charge. Beginning his career while still in college at Northwestern University, Stark collaborated with Executive Producer Bob Banner on his senior project Rising Stars to develop and eventually launch the long-running series Star Search with syndication mogul Al Masini. The series ran for 12 years and launched the careers of many successful and notable artists. Stark's series that he has overseen or produced have garnered multiple Peabodys, Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG, DGA, WGA, AFI, BANFF and Rose d'Or wins. Stark is the recipient of the Entertainment Industries Council Special Commendation, 2 AFI Television Awards, a Genesis Award, The Prism Award, The Golden Reel Award and received the Help Group Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2019. He is a member of the Producers Guild of America, Writers Guild of America, the Television Academy and a proud graduate of Northwestern University.