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Jan de Bont (Dutch: [ˈjɑn də ˈbɔnt]; born 22 October 1943) is a Dutch retired film director, producer, and a former cinematographer.
As director, he's best known for action and adventure films like Speed (1994) and Twister (1996). As cinematographer, he is known for blockbusters and genre films like Die Hard (1988), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), and Basic Instinct (1992).
Contents
Early life
De Bont was born to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands, one of 17 children.
Career
Cinematographer
His earliest works were made while studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy with Dutch avant-garde director Adriaan Ditvoorst.
He first became known in the Netherlands as the cinematographer for the infamous Blue Movie in 1971, followed by the Turkish Delight (1973), directed by Paul Verhoeven.
After Max Havelaar, he worked frequently in American films during the 1980s.
While serving as cinematographer for the 1981 film Roar, de Bont was one of the many crew members to suffer on-set injuries, with a lion lifting his scalp. The injury required 220 stitches.
In 1988, he was director of photography on the critically acclaimed action film Die Hard.
Director
De Bont made his directorial debut with the sleeper hit action thriller Speed.
He followed this up with the even more successful Twister in 1996. His output since has had mixed reception.
In 1997, he returned to direct Speed's sequel Cruise Control, which fared much worse both critically and commercially.
In 1999, he oversaw the commercially successful remake of The Haunting, which also received negative reviews from critics.
De Bont's final directorial outing was the 2003 action adventure film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life, sequel to the 2001 film.
De Bont began pre-production on an American Godzilla film for a summer 1996 release, but quit at the end of 1994 when Sony Pictures Entertainment (Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures's parent company) refused to approve his budget request. He was eventually replaced by Roland Emmerich, who rewrote the script in addition to directing. While critically panned, Emmerich's Godzilla was moderately successful at the box-office.
At one point, de Bont mooted an asteroid/space shuttle disaster film project called Galileo's Wake as a possible follow-up to Speed 2: Cruise Control.
In 1997, de Bont was originally attached to direct the film Minority Report, which Steven Spielberg would end up directing instead. Also that year, de Bont was attached to direct Supertanker at Centropolis Entertainment. Bill Pullman and Samuel L. Jackson were set to star to the film. In May that same year it was reported the 20th Century Fox thriller film Zero Hour would be his next film; though he would drop out by the end of the year.
In February 1998, Fox optioned the rights to Gregory Benford's sci-fi novel Cosm for de Bont's Blue Tulip Productions to produce as a feature film, with Robert Collins attached as script writer. In March he was developing to produce and direct the action film Pathfinder for Paramount Pictures. By September, he was confirmed to additionally direct Cosm. Other projects touted as potential directing vehicles for de Bont that year included the Tazio Nuvolari biopic Nuvolari, the time travel thriller Old City, and the thriller Hindenberg.
Filmography
Cinematographer credits
Short film
Feature film
TV movies
TV series
