Stephen Sommers
Stephen Sommers (born March 20, 1962) is an American film director and screenwriter, best known for big-budget action movies, such as "The Mummy" (1999), its sequel, "The Mummy Returns" (2001), "Van Helsing" (2004), and "" (2009). He also directed "The Adventures of Huck Finn" (1993), Disney's live action version of "Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book" (1994) and the cult classic horror film "Deep Rising" (1998). Early life. Stephen Sommers was born in Indianapolis, and grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he attended St. Cloud Apollo High School. He is a 1980 graduate of Saint John 's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and the University of Seville in Spain. After graduating, 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 to Los Angeles, where he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts for three years, earning a master's degree and writing and directing the award-winning short film "Perfect Alibi". Career. "Perfect Alibi" helped Sommers acquire independent funding to write and direct his first feature film, the teen racing film "Catch Me If You Can", filmed for $800,000  on location in his hometown of St. Cloud. The film was sold at the Cannes Film Festival for $7 million and later debuted on video in the United States. 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". He later wrote the screenplays for "Gunmen" and "Tom and Huck", which he also executive produced for Disney (along with a TV version of "Oliver Twist" in 1997  starring Richard Dreyfuss and Elijah Wood), and worked as a staff writer at Hollywood Pictures. While there, he worked on a script called "Tentacle", which he later directed under the title "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 Awards 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". 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 film pitting legendary vampire hunter Gabriel Van Helsing against the triumvirate of Universal movie monsters: Count Dracula, The Wolf Man, and Frankenstein's monster. 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 was to have made use of the film's Prague  set) was about a young cowboy from Texas who becomes a sheriff in Transylvania, has many strange adventures, and encounters many strange creatures. Sommers and Ducsay were to have been executive producers, and Sommers wrote scripts for the pilot and first several episodes, but 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 was also 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 film called "Airborn" based on the novel "Airborn", a romantic/adventure story called "Big Love", and a remake of the French film "Les Victimes". Sommers opted out of directing the third "Mummy" film, titled "", instead becoming one of its producers. Sommers directed Paramount Pictures' summer 2009 live-action adaptation of "", and also served as a producer. Around that time, he was developing a Tarzan adaptation for Warner Bros. but left the project. His most recent film, "Odd Thomas", had been delayed from release due to lawsuits against the production  company, but was eventually released.