David Geffen donates $25M for film museum

Music and movie mogul David Geffen has donated $25 million for a film museum planned by Academy Awards overseers.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Monday that the David Geffen Foundation made the donation for the museum scheduled to open in 2017 next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

It's the largest contribution yet in AMPAS' $300 million campaign drive for the museum. The campaign is chaired by Bob Iger, Disney's chairman and chief executive.

"David's support of this project is transformative," Iger said in a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times. "It takes a large and diverse group of supporters to built a project on the scale of the Academy Museum."

In recognition of Geffen's donation, the academy is naming a theater at the facility after him.

Geffen, who rose to prominence as a record company executive, founded DreamWorks Pictures with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg in 1994.

Geffen says the museum will provide a permanent home for the academy's tradition of "honoring the shining stars of the cinematic arts."