Doug Liman

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Doug Liman bigraphy, stories - Filmmaker

Doug Liman : biography

24 July 1965 –

Douglas Eric "Doug" Liman (born July 24, 1965) is an American film director and producer best known for Swingers (1996), The Bourne Identity (2002), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Jumper (2008), and Fair Game (2010).

Filmography

Directing Credits

Year Film Notes
1994 Getting In
1996 Swingers MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker
1999 Go Nominated – Independent Spirit Award for Best Director
2002 The Bourne Identity Also Producer
2005 Mr. & Mrs. Smith
2008 Jumper
2010 Fair Game Also ProducerNominated – Palme d’Or
2014 All You Need Is Kill
TBA Jumper II

Producing Credits Only

  • Mail Order Wife (2004, Producer)
  • The Bourne Supremacy (2004, Executive Producer)
  • The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, Executive Producer)
  • The Killing Floor (2007, Executive Producer)
  • Covert Affairs (2010–, Executive Producer)
  • Suits (2011–, Executive Producer)

Movie career

Liman became attached to direct Swingers when its screenwriter Jon Favreau turned down offers from studios who wanted to cast established actors. The director agreed to cast Favreau and his friends (Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston, and Patrick Van Horn) in this comedy about struggling actors amid the L.A. club milieu. The result was a $250,000 dialogue-propelled film that became a sleeper hit and critical success. In addition to establishing a cult following, it jump-started the careers of the featured actors. Liman sold the film to Miramax for $5.5 million; shortly after the sale, Favreau refused to speak to Liman. They rekindled their friendship years later.

Liman’s next effort, Go (1999), tracked the events of one night through three different points of view as plot lines diverged and reconverged; Liman was also the film’s cinematographer. The film made a profit at the box office grossing $28.4 million worldwide against a $6.5 million budget.

In 1999, Liman shot a commercial for Nike in which Tiger Woods, without letting the ball touch the ground, repeatedly bounced a ball on his club and then drove it into the distance. Liman enjoyed further commercial success when he directed the action thriller The Bourne Identity (2002), an adaptation of author Robert Ludlum’s novel. The film that Liman delivered lacked sufficient action sequences to satisfy test groups of young males, so Universal Studios required him to shoot almost twenty minutes of replacement scenes. Liman remained with the Bourne franchise through its next two installments (2004’s The Bourne Supremacy and 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum), but served instead as an executive producer while Paul Greengrass took over directing duties on both films. Building on his success, Liman executive produced and directed the pilot episode (Premiere) as well as the second episode (The Model Home) of the successful Fox prime time drama The O.C. (2003–2007). Liman produced and directed a series of comedy shorts for the Chrysler Film Project and Cannes Film Festival entitled Indie Is Great.

Liman also directed Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), a comedic thriller about an increasingly distant married couple, both secretly assassins, who are hired to kill each other. The film, his most commercially successful to date, is also well known for the off-screen romance between stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who developed a high-profile relationship after making the film. In 2005, Liman signed on to direct the pilot episode of NBC’s television series Heist, which is about a season-long attempt to rob three jewelry stores on Beverly Hills’ swanky Rodeo Drive.