Janet Healy (earlier credited as Janet Mohler) is an American film producer who has spent over four decades at the center of Hollywood's most technically demanding productions. She is best known as a founding producer of the Illumination Entertainment slate, including the globally successful Despicable Me franchise,1 and as a founding member of the Visual Effects Society.2 Her Ghostbusters connection came during her years at Industrial Light and Magic, where she served as Visual Effects Producer on Ghostbusters II (1989).3
Career
Live-action and early credits
Healy began her career working on live-action productions under directors Stanley Kramer, Hal Ashby, and Sam Peckinpah.4 She later joined Steven Spielberg's productions, contributing to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and 1941 (1979), on which she served as Associate Producer.1
Industrial Light and Magic
Following her work on the Spielberg pictures, Healy joined Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), the visual effects company founded by George Lucas and based in Marin County, California, where she rose to Co-Head of Production.4 At ILM she produced some of the most technically ambitious effects work of the era, overseeing the transition from photo-chemical and in-camera methods to the digital 2D and 3D compositing techniques that reshaped the industry. Her ILM credits include Willow (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), and Joe Versus the Volcano (1990).1 She then produced the Academy Award-winning visual effects for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993).4
Walt Disney Feature Animation
In 1995 Healy joined Walt Disney Feature Animation as Head of Digital Production.4 In that role she oversaw the computer-generated imagery pipelines for Mulan (1998), Tarzan (1999), and Dinosaur (2000), three productions that collectively pushed Disney's CG capabilities into new territory.1
DreamWorks Animation
After Disney, Healy moved to DreamWorks Animation, serving as Co-Head of Production. She produced Shark Tale (2004), a fully computer-animated feature that became one of the studio's major releases of that year.4
IDT Entertainment
In December 2004 Healy was appointed President of Animation Production at IDT Entertainment, where she oversaw all budgets, staffing, and production schedules across the company's animation projects,4 including the feature Space Chimps (2008), which was distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.1
Illumination Entertainment
In 2008 Healy joined producer and studio founder Chris Meledandri at the newly formed Illumination Entertainment, a partnership with Universal Pictures.5 She has served as producer on the studio's entire feature slate, which has generated billions of dollars in global box office revenue. Her Illumination credits include: Despicable Me (2010), The Lorax (2012), Despicable Me 2 (2013), Minions (2015), The Secret Life of Pets (2016), Sing (2016), Despicable Me 3 (2017), The Grinch (2018), The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019), Sing 2 (2021), and Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022).1