Out Of The Wild.

Mark Burnett may revel in the great outdoors most days, but today his corner office hard by the Santa Monica Freeway is shuttered against the Los Angeles (Calif.) glare. Burnett is in everyday command mode, but something is missing: his hat, the brown-felt Akubra that gives him a vague resemblance to Indiana Jones -- minus the coiled whip and the damsel in distress -- when he is in the field producing the 'Eco-Challenge' and 'Survivor.' Burnett's 'Eco-Challenge,' conducted in exotic corners of the globe every year since 1995 and brought to TV audiences in dramatic miniseries fashion by, in succession, MTV, ESPN, Discovery and USA Network, spawned a whole sport and several ancillary industries, from adventure-racing gear manufacturing to corporate team-building events. There Burnett revealed his long-term goals: 'Eco-Challenge,' then TV, then movies, with lots of money made along the way. When many top racers decided to do Don Mann's Beast of the East race in Alaska instead of the 'Eco-Challenge' in Borneo three years ago, Burnett lured them back by promising to pay expenses and airfare, an offer no underfunded adventure athlete (which is to say, all of them) could refuse.