Jon Landau (/ˈlændaʊ/; July 23, 1960–July 5, 2024) was an American film producer who won an Academy Award for Best Picture for producing James Cameron's epic romantic disaster film Titanic (1997). He was also nominated for producing Cameron's epic science fiction films, Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). As of 2024, these are three of the four highest-grossing films of all time. Landau was born in New York City on July 23, 1960, as the son of Edie, a producer, and Ely A. Landau, a studio executive and producer. He had two half-brothers, Neil Landau and Les Landau, and two sisters, Tina Landau and Kathy Landau. He attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Landau was Jewish. Throughout the early 1990s, Landau was executive vice president of feature film production at Twentieth Century Fox. In 1993, he would meet James Ca...