A Hollywood veteran with over four decades of experience behind him, Arne Schmidt is a film producer, assistant director and occasional screenwriter. He is best known for bankrolling the cyberpunk action movie RoboCop (1987), the sports comedy Little Giants (1994) and the sci-fi thriller Chain Reaction (1996). Besides these, Schmidt has also served as an executive producer in acclaimed movies like Awakenings (1990), We Were Soldiers (2002) and Big Fish (2003).

As an assistant director, Schmidt has been associated with the crime drama Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), the psychological drama Who'll Stop the Rain (1978) and the musical romance film One from the Heart (1981). Notable writing credits include Chain Reaction (1996) and the action thriller Hunter Killer (2018), the latter of which he also served as an executive producer in.