Zanuck, Wife Forming Film Development Company

Signaling an official end to his 18-year partnership with David Brown, film producer Richard Zanuck announced Monday that he is forming a development company with his wife and financier Jerry Perenchio.

The Zanuck/Brown team--which over the years has produced such box office winners as “The French Connection,” “The Sting,” and “Jaws”--had been drifting apart for some time. Although Brown was listed as a producer on “Cocoon: The Return,” released Nov. 23, he was not intimately involved in the film, according to Zanuck.

“David had always said that at a certain point he wanted to drop out and do his own thing,” Zanuck said in a phone interview from his office Monday. In addition to producing films, Brown is now at work on two books.

Zanuck’s new firm, the Zanuck Co., will finance the development of its own films--10 to 12 a year--before bringing them to a studio. “This gives us the freedom we’ve never had before in terms of developing and buying each project,” Zanuck said. Previously, Zanuck/Brown had worked under a production contract with MGM.

Lili Fini Zanuck, Richard Zanuck’s wife, had been at Zanuck/Brown for 10 years, working her way up from a self-described gofer to a co-producer of “Cocoon: The Return.” Prior to joining the film business, she worked as a marketing researcher at Carnation Co. and a research assistant at the World Bank.

Perenchio, who will provide the bulk of the firm’s financing, sold two companies he co-owned--Tandem/TAT Communications and Embassy Pictures--to Coca-Cola. In 1986, he sold Loews Theaters to Tri-Star Pictures.

The new company’s first production will be “Driving Miss Daisy,” to be directed by Bruce Beresford. Zanuck, who was production chief and president of 20th Century Fox between 1962 and 1970, said he and his partners plan to produce two films a year.