Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1952) is an American filmmaker. He first came to public attention as the director of the action-adventure romantic comedy ''
Romancing the Stone'' (1984), the science-fiction comedy ''
Back to the Future'' film trilogy (1985–1990), and the live-action/animated comedy ''
Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' (1988). He subsequently directed the satirical black comedy ''
Death Becomes Her'' (1992) and then diversified into more dramatic fare, including ''
Forrest Gump'' (1994), for which he won the
Academy Award for Best Director and the film won
Best Picture. He has directed films across a wide variety of genres, for both adults and families.
Zemeckis is regarded as an innovator in
visual effects. His exploration of state-of-the-art special effects includes the early use of
insertion of computer graphics into live-action footage in ''
Back to the Future Part II'' (1989) and ''Forrest Gump'', the insertion of hand-drawn animation into live-action footage in ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', and the pioneering
performance capture techniques seen in ''
The Polar Express'' (2004), ''
Monster House'' (2006), ''
Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beo ...
'' (2007), ''
A Christmas Carol'' (2009), and ''
Welcome to Marwen'' (2018). Though interest in Zemeckis has at times been solely limited to his work with special effects,
his work has been praised by several film critics, including
David Thomson, who wrote that "no other contemporary director has used special effects to more dramatic and narrative purpose."
Early life
Robert Lee Zemeckis was born on May 14, 1952, in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
the son of Rosa (''née'' Nespeca)
and Alphonse Zemeckis.
His father was
Lithuanian-American while his mother was
Italian-American.
[
Zemeckis grew up on the South Side of the city. He attended a ]Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
grade school and Fenger Academy High School. Zemeckis has said "the truth was that in my family there was no art. I mean, there was no music, there were no books, there was no theater... The only thing I had that was inspirational, was television—and it actually was."
As a child, he loved television and was fascinated by his parents' 8 mm film home movie camera. Starting off by filming family events like birthdays and holidays, he gradually began producing narrative films with his friends that incorporated stop-motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
work and other special effects. Along with enjoying movies, Zemeckis remained an avid TV watcher. "You hear so much about the problems with television," he said, "but I think that it saved my life." Television gave Zemeckis his first glimpse of a world outside of his blue-collar upbringing; specifically, he learned of the existence of film schools on an episode of '' The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson''.
After seeing '' Bonnie and Clyde'' with his father and being heavily influenced by it, Zemeckis decided that he wanted to go to film school. His parents disapproved of the idea, Zemeckis later said, "But only in the sense that they were concerned... for my family and my friends and the world that I grew up in, this was the kind of dream that really was impossible. My parents would sit there and say, 'Don't you see where you come from? You can't be a movie director.' I guess maybe some of it I felt I had to do in spite of them, too."
Career
Education and early films (1969–1979)
Zemeckis first attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, and gained early experience in film as a film cutter for NBC News in Chicago during a summer break. He also edited commercials in his home state. Zemeckis applied to transfer from NIU to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, California and went into the Film School on the strength of an essay and a music video based on a Beatles song. Not having heard from the university itself, Zemeckis called and was told he had been rejected because of his average grades. He gave an "impassioned plea" to the official on the other line, promising to go to summer school and improve his studies, and eventually convinced the school to accept him.
Arriving at USC that fall, Zemeckis encountered a program that was, in his words, made up of "a bunch of hippies ndconsidered an embarrassment by the university". The classes were difficult, with professors constantly stressing how hard the movie business was. Zemeckis remembered not being much fazed by this, citing the "healthy cynicism" that had been bred into him from his Chicago upbringing.
At USC Zemeckis met a fellow student, writer Bob Gale. Gale later recalled, "The graduate students at USC had this veneer of intellectualism...So Bob and I gravitated toward one another because we wanted to make Hollywood movies. We weren't interested in the French New Wave. We were interested in Clint Eastwood and James Bond and Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
, because that's how we grew up."[Shone, Tom. ''Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Summer''. New York: Free Press, 2004; pp. 123-125.] Zemeckis graduated from USC in 1973, and he and Gale cowrote the unproduced screenplays ''Tank'' and ''Bordello of Blood
''Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood'' is a 1996 American horror comedy film directed by Gilbert Adler, from a screenplay by Adler and A.L. Katz, and a story by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis. Dennis Miller stars as Rafe Guttman, a pri ...
'', which they pitched to John Milius
John Frederick Milius (; born April 11, 1944) is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He was a writer for the first two ''Dirty Harry'' films, received an Academy Award nomination as screenwriter of ''Apocalypse Now'' (1979), a ...
, the latter of which was later developed into a film which was released in 1996.
As a result of winning a Student Academy Award at USC for his film ''A Field of Honor'', Zemeckis came to the attention of Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
. Spielberg said, "He barged right past my secretary and sat me down and showed me this student film...and I thought it was spectacular, with police cars and a riot, all dubbed to Elmer Bernstein's score for '' The Great Escape''." Spielberg became Zemeckis's mentor and executive produced his first two films, both of which Gale and Zemeckis co-wrote.
'' I Wanna Hold Your Hand'' (1978), starring Nancy Allen, and '' Used Cars'' (1980), starring Kurt Russell
Kurt Vogel Russell (born March 17, 1951) is an American actor. He began acting on television at the age of 12 in the Westerns on television, western series ''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (TV series), The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'' (19 ...
, were well received critically but were commercial failures. ''I Wanna Hold Your Hand'' was the first of several Zemeckis films to incorporate historic figures and celebrities into his movies. In the film, he used archival footage and doubles to simulate the presence of The Beatles. After the failure of his first two films, and the Spielberg-directed bomb '' 1941'' in 1979 (for which Zemeckis and Gale had written the screenplay), the pair gained a reputation for writing "scripts that everyone thought were great utsomehow didn't translate into movies people wanted to see."
Breakthrough and ''Forrest Gump'' (1980–1997)
As a result of his reputation within the industry, Zemeckis had trouble finding work in the early 1980s, though he and Gale kept busy. They wrote scripts for other directors, including ''Car Pool'' for Brian De Palma and ''Growing Up'' for Spielberg; neither ended up getting made. Another Zemeckis-Gale project, '' Back to the Future'', about a teenager who accidentally travels back in time to the 1950s, was turned down by every major studio.[Horowitz, Mark. "Back with a Future", ''American Film'', July/August 1988. pp. 32–35.] The director was jobless until Michael Douglas hired him in 1984 to direct '' Romancing the Stone''. A romantic adventure starring Douglas and Kathleen Turner
Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, and two Tony Awards.
Turner became widely k ...
, ''Romancing'' was expected to flop (to the point that, after viewing a rough cut of the film, the producers of the then-in-the-works '' Cocoon'' fired Zemeckis as director), but the film became a sleeper hit. While working on ''Romancing the Stone'', Zemeckis met composer Alan Silvestri, who has scored all his subsequent pictures.
After ''Romancing'', Zemeckis had the clout to direct his time-traveling screenplay. Starring Michael J. Fox, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Christopher Lloyd, the 1985 film was wildly successful upon its release and was followed by two sequels, released as '' Back to the Future Part II'' in 1989 and ''Back to the Future Part III
''Back to the Future Part III'' is a 1990 American science fiction Western film and the final installment of the ''Back to the Future'' trilogy. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, and stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Stee ...
'' in 1990. Before the ''Back to the Future'' sequels were released, Zemeckis collaborated with Disney and directed another film, the madcap 1940s-set mystery '' Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', which combined traditional animation and live-action; its $70 million budget made it one of the most expensive films made up to that point. The film was both a financial and critical success and won three Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment in ...
s. In 1990, Zemeckis commented, when asked if he would want to make non-comedies, "I would like to be able to do everything. Just now, though, I'm too restless to do anything that's not really zany."
In 1992, Zemeckis directed the black comedy '' Death Becomes Her'', starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis. Although his next film would have some comedic elements, it was Zemeckis's first with dramatic elements and was also his biggest commercial success to date, '' Forrest Gump''. Starring Tom Hanks in the title role, ''Forrest Gump'' tells the story of a man with a low I.Q., who unwittingly participates in some of the major events of the twentieth century, falls in love, and interacts with several major historical figures in the process. The film grossed $677 million worldwide and became the top-grossing US film of 1994; it won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor
Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play.
The term most often refers to th ...
(for Hanks) and Best Director (for Zemeckis). From this point, Hanks would continue acting for Zemeckis in subsequent films and they became considered frequent collaborators. In 1997, Zemeckis directed '' Contact'', a long-gestating project based on Carl Sagan's 1985 novel of the same name. The film centers on Eleanor Arroway, a scientist played by Jodie Foster, who believes she has made contact with extraterrestrial beings. In the early 1990s, he founded South Side Amusement Company, which later became ImageMovers.
During this same time period, Zemeckis was an executive producer of HBO's " Tales from the Crypt" (1989–1996) and directed three episodes of the series.
Later work, 1999–present
In 1999, Zemeckis donated $5 million towards the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts at USC, a center. When the Center opened in March 2001, Zemeckis spoke in a panel about the future of film, alongside friends Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Of those (including Spielberg) who clung to celluloid and disparaged the idea of shooting digitally, Zemeckis said, "These guys are the same ones who have been saying that LPs
LPS may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Lipopolysaccharide (Endotoxin)
* Levator palpebrae superioris muscle
Schools
* Leighton Park School in Reading, England
* Lexington Public Schools, a school district in Massachusetts, USA
* Lincoln P ...
sound better than CDs. You can argue that until you're blue in the face, but I don't know anyone who's still buying vinyl. The film, as we have traditionally thought of it, is going to be different. But the continuum is man's desire to tell stories around the campfire. The only thing that keeps changing is the campfire." The Robert Zemeckis Center currently hosts many film school classes, much of the Interactive Media Division, and Trojan Vision, USC's student television station, which has been voted the number one college television station in the country.
In 1996, Zemeckis had begun developing a project titled ''The Castaway'' with Tom Hanks and writer William Broyles Jr. The story, which was inspired by Robinson Crusoe, is about a man who becomes stranded on a desert island and undergoes a profound physical and spiritual change.[Fall Movie Preview: December](_blank)
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cult ...
, 18 August 2000 (accessed 28 October 2021). While working on ''The Castaway'', Zemeckis also became attached to a Hitchcockian thriller titled '' What Lies Beneath'', the story of a married couple experiencing an extreme case of empty nest syndrome that was based on an idea by Steven Spielberg.[Petrikin, Chris.]
"Pairing for Zemeckis"
'' Variety'', 14 October 1998 (accessed 11 September 2007). Because Hanks' character needed to undergo a dramatic weight loss over the course of ''The Castaway'' (retitled '' Cast Away'' for release), Zemeckis decided that the only way to retain the same crew while Hanks lost the weight was to shoot ''What Lies Beneath'' in between. He shot the first part of ''Cast Away'' in early 1999, and shot ''What Lies Beneath'' in fall 1999, completing work on ''Cast Away'' in early 2000. Zemeckis later quipped, when asked about shooting two films back-to-back, "I wouldn't recommend it to anyone." ''What Lies Beneath'', starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer (; born April 29, 1958) is an American actress and producer. A prolific performer whose List of Michelle Pfeiffer performances, screen work spans over four decades, she became one of Hollywood's most bankable stars and ...
, was released in July 2000 to mixed reviews, but did well at the box office, grossing over $155 million domestically. ''Cast Away'' was released that December and grossed $233 million domestically; Hanks received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor
Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play.
The term most often refers to th ...
for his portrayal of Chuck Noland.
In 2004, Zemeckis reteamed with Hanks and directed '' The Polar Express'', based on the children's book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. ''The Polar Express'' utilized the computer animation technique known as performance capture, whereby the movements of the actors are captured digitally and used as the basis for the animated characters. As the first major film to use performance capture, ''The Polar Express'' caused ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' to write that, "Whatever critics and audiences make of this movie, from a technical perspective it could mark a turning point in the gradual transition from an analog to a digital cinema."
In February 2007, Zemeckis and Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook
Richard W. Cook is an American film entertainment executive, and has served on the Board of Directors of Legendary Pictures since 2011. Prior to joining Legendary Pictures, he was the Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios from 2002 to 2009. At the ...
announced plans for a new performance capture film company devoted to CG-created, 3-D movies. The company, ImageMovers Digital, created films using the performance capture technology, with Zemeckis directing most of the projects which Disney distributed and marketed worldwide. Zemeckis used the performance capture technology again in his film, ''Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beo ...
'', to retell the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of the same name. It featured Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie, and Anthony Hopkins. Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...
, who co-wrote the adaptation with Roger Avary, described the film as a "cheerfully violent and strange take on the Beowulf legend." The film was released on November 16, 2007, to mostly positive reviews and grossed $196 million worldwide.
In July 2007, '' Variety'' announced that Zemeckis had written a screenplay for '' A Christmas Carol'', based on Charles Dickens' 1843 short story of the same name, with plans to use performance capture and release it under the aegis of ImageMovers Digital. Zemeckis wrote the script with Jim Carrey
James Eugene Carrey (; born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian-American actor, comedian and artist. Known for his energetic slapstick performances, Carrey first gained recognition in 1990, after landing a role in the American sketch comedy te ...
in mind, and Carrey agreed to play a multitude of roles in the film, including Ebenezer Scrooge as a young, middle-aged, and old man, and the three ghosts who haunt Scrooge. The film began production in February 2008 and was released on November 6, 2009, to mixed reviews and grossed $325 million at the box office. Actor Gary Oldman also appeared in the film. Zemeckis is an avid supporter of 3-D Digital Cinema and has stated that since the 3-D presentations of ''Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beo ...
'', all of his future films would be done in 3-D using digital motion capture
Motion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robo ...
. He has reportedly backed away from that statement and said that the decision to use 3-D will be on a film-by-film basis.
On August 19, 2009, it was reported that Zemeckis and his company were in talks with Apple Corps Ltd
Apple Corps Limited (informally known as Apple) is a multi-armed multimedia corporation founded in London in January 1968 by the members of the Beatles to replace their earlier company (Beatles Ltd.) and to form a conglomerate. Its name (pron ...
to remake the animated film '' Yellow Submarine'' in 3-D once again utilizing performance capture. However, on March 12, 2010, with Zemeckis' biggest Disney ally gone, former chairman Dick Cook, and amid drastic cost-cutting by the new management team, Disney announced that it was ending its relationship with ImageMovers Digital. The studio's final film, 2011's Zemeckis-produced '' Mars Needs Moms'', was the second-worst box office failure in history, with a net loss of roughly $130 million. Zemeckis made his return to live-action filmmaking with '' Flight'', a 2012 drama for Paramount, starring Denzel Washington.
On January 31, 2014, it was announced that a stage musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...
adaptation of Zemeckis' first ''Back to the Future'' film was in production. The show would be co-written by original writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. According to Gale, the musical would be "true to the spirit of the film without being a slavish remake".
In August 2008, '' IGN'' revealed in an interview with Philippe Petit
Philippe Petit (; born 13 August 1949) is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized high-wire walks between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, as well as between the Twi ...
that Zemeckis was working with Petit to turn Petit's memoir ''To Reach the Clouds'' into a feature film. In 2015, he directed the true story '' The Walk'', which is about Philippe Petit ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his ambition to tightrope walk between the towers of the World Trade Center.
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
and 20th Century Fox announced in February 2015 that Zemeckis would direct Brad Pitt in '' Allied'', a romantic thriller set during World War II. The film was released on November 23, 2016. Next, Zemeckis directed the fantasy drama '' Welcome to Marwen'', starring Steve Carell, which was released in December 2018 to mixed reviews and flopped at the box office. Zemeckis' film '' The Witches'', an adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel of the same name, premiered on October 22, 2020, on HBO Max
HBO Max is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Netwo ...
.
On October 18, 2019, it was announced that Zemeckis is in talks to direct Disney's live-action adaptation of '' Pinocchio''. Zemeckis was officially announced as the film's director and co-writer of the script in January 2020. In addition, Tom Hanks was reportedly announced as playing Mister Geppetto
Geppetto ( , ), also known as Mister Geppetto, is an Italian fictional character in the 1883 novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' by Carlo Collodi. Geppetto is an elderly, impoverished woodcarver and the creator (and thus 'father') of Pinocchio ...
in the film, marking the fourth collaboration with Hanks since ''Forrest Gump'', ''Cast Away'', and ''The Polar Express''.
On February 17, 2022, Zemeckis signed on to direct ''Here'', an adaptation of the graphic novel by Richard McGuire, with Tom Hanks set to star and ''Forrest Gump'' screenwriter Eric Roth working on the screenplay with Zemeckis. On May 11, it was announced that Robin Wright had been cast and that Sony Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio Conglomerate (company), conglom ...
had acquired distribution rights for the United States, with Miramax
Miramax, LLC, also known as Miramax Films, is an American film and television production and distribution company founded on December 19, 1979, by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and based in Los Angeles, California.
It was initially a leadi ...
handling international sales and production expected to begin in September 2022 for a theatrical release in 2023.
Personal life
Zemeckis has said that, for a long time, he sacrificed his personal life in favor of a career. "I won an Academy Award when I was 44 years old," he explained, "but I paid for it with my 20s. That decade of my life from film school till 30 was nothing but work, nothing but absolute, driving work. I had no money. I had no life." In the early 1980s, Zemeckis married actress Mary Ellen Trainor, with whom he had a son, Alexander Francis. He described the marriage as difficult to balance with filmmaking, and his relationship with Trainor eventually ended in divorce. On December 4, 2001, he married Leslie Harter, an actress, with whom he has three children.[
Zemeckis is a ]private pilot
A private pilot licence (PPL) or, in the United States, a private pilot certificate, is a type of pilot licence that allows the holder to act as pilot in command of an aircraft privately (not for remuneration). The licence requirements are dete ...
who has logged approximately 1,600 hours of flight time . He flies a Cirrus SR20, known for having a parachute that, under certain conditions, can lower the plane to the ground in case of an emergency.
According to campaign donation records, Zemeckis has frequently contributed to political candidates affiliated with the Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
, as well as PACs that support the interests of aircraft owners and pilots, family planning interests, and a group that advocates for Hollywood women.
Filmography
Feature films
Short films
Television
Accolades
Major awards
Other awards
*In 1996, Zemeckis received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...
presented by Awards Council member George Lucas.
*On November 5, 2004, Zemeckis received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in Motion Picture at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.
Accolades received by individual films
See also
* Directors with two films rated A+ by CinemaScore
* Robert Zemeckis' unproduced projects
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zemeckis, Robert
1951 births
American animated film directors
American animated film producers
American Cinema Editors
American film directors of Italian descent
American male screenwriters
American people of Lithuanian descent
American science fiction writers
American writers of Italian descent
Animation screenwriters
Best Directing Academy Award winners
Best Director Golden Globe winners
Comedy film directors
Directors Guild of America Award winners
Fantasy film directors
Film directors from California
Film producers from California
Film directors from Illinois
Film producers from Illinois
Hugo Award-winning writers
Living people
Northern Illinois University alumni
People from Santa Barbara, California
Postmodernist filmmakers
Science fiction film directors
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from Illinois
Student Academy Award winners
USC School of Cinematic Arts alumni
Writers from Chicago