Stephen Sommers

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Stephen Sommers
Born March 20, 1962
Dayton, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation film director and screenwriter
Spouse(s) Jana Sommers (1993-present)

Stephen Sommers (born March 20, 1962) is an American movie director/writer best known for the 1999 blockbuster The Mummy, its sequel The Mummy Returns, and the action/horror film Van Helsing.

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[edit] Biography

Stephen Sommers was born in Dayton, Ohio[1] and grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He is a 1980 graduate of St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and the University of Seville in Spain. Afterwards, he spent four years performing as an actor in theater groups and managing rock bands throughout Europe. He eventually returned to the United States and moved out to Los Angeles, where he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts for three years. There he graduated with a Master's Degree, as well as wrote and directed an award-winning short film called Perfect Alibi. (It was also there that he met Bob Ducsay, who has gone on to edit all of his movies.) Perfect Alibi helped Sommers acquire independent funding to write and direct his first feature film, the teen racing movie Catch Me If You Can, which was filmed on location in his hometown of St. Cloud for $300,000. The film was released theatrically overseas but debuted on video in the US, ultimately grossing about $6,000,000.

Almost four years later, broke and in danger of having his house repossessed, he wrote and directed an adaptation of Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huck Finn for Walt Disney Pictures, as well as Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. In between films, he married his wife, Jana, on July 24, 1993. He later wrote the screenplays for Gunmen and The Adventures of Tom and Huck, which he also executive produced for Disney, and worked as a staff writer at Hollywood Pictures. He and his wife had their first child, a daughter named Samantha June, in 1996. While at Hollywood Pictures, he worked on a script called Tentacle, which he later directed as the retitled Deep Rising in 1998.

In 1999, he wrote and directed Universal Studios' big-budget remake of The Mummy. The film was a smash hit, and Sommers received two Saturn Award nominations for Best Director and Best Writer in 2000 by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. A successful sequel, The Mummy Returns, followed two years later, and he also co-wrote and produced 2002's The Scorpion King, a prequel/spin-off of The Mummy Returns. His second daughter was born in 2001.

In 2004, Sommers founded his own company (along with editor/producing partner Bob Ducsay), The Sommers Company, and returned to theater screens with Van Helsing, a movie pitting legendary vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing against the triumvirate of Universal movie monsters: Count Dracula, The Wolf Man, and Frankenstein's monster. He also founded The Sommers Company with producing partner Bob Ducsay, to develop films of their own and those of other filmakers. Before Van Helsing even premiered, Sommers and Ducsay began developing a spin-off TV series for NBC called Transylvania. Though featuring none of the characters from the film, the series (which would have made use of the film's Prague set) was about a young cowboy from Texas who becomes a sheriff in Transylvania and has many strange adventures and encounters many strange creatures. Sommers and Ducsay would have been executive producers, and Sommers had written scripts for the pilot and first several episodes. However, NBC decided not to go through with the show.

Since Van Helsing, Sommers has been attached to a number of projects. He was originally set to direct Night at the Museum, but dropped out due to creative differences. He's also been attached to a remake of When Worlds Collide (to be executive produced by Steven Spielberg), a new big-screen adaptation of Flash Gordon, a swashbuckling adventure movie called Airborn based on the novel, a romantic/adventure story called Big Love, and a remake of the French film Les Victimes. Sommers has decided not to direct the third Mummy film, titled The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

On August 23, Variety reported that Sommers has been tapped by Paramount Pictures to direct their upcoming live-action adaptation of G.I. Joe for a 2009 release. Sommers will also serve as a producer.[2]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ AMC's Sunday Morning Shootout, June 27, 2004
  2. ^ Stephen Sommers to direct 'G.I. Joe' - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety

[edit] External links

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Films directed by Stephen Sommers

The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993) • The Jungle Book (1994) • Deep Rising (1998) • The Mummy (1999) • The Mummy Returns (2001) • Van Helsing (2004) • G.I. Joe (2009)