Age: 64
male
Born and raised in Minnesota, Stephen Sommers went on to attend St. John’s University before transferring to the University of Seville in Spain. After graduating, he spent the next several years managing rock bands throughout Europe. Relocating to Los Angeles, Sommers enrolled in the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and spent the next three years earning a Masters Degree in Film Production. Upon writing and directing an award-winning student film, Perfect Alibi, he was granted the opportunity to write and direct his first feature-length motion picture – a story set in the world of high school drag racing entitled Catch Me If You Can. From there, Sommers went on to create such well-known and beloved adaptations as The Adventures of Huck Finn and Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, both for Walt Disney Pictures. He also wrote and executive produced Disney’s adventure film Tom and Huck before returning to the director’s chair for the suspense-thriller Deep Rising. The next year, Sommers wrote, directed and produced the first installment of The Mummy franchise for Universal Studios. That film and its sequel, The Mummy Returns, have grossed over eight-hundred and forty million dollars worldwide. His next monster blockbuster was the action-adventure epic Van Helsing, released in 2004, which did over three-hundred million dollars at the box office. Following his producing duties on The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – which made the trilogy a billion dollar franchise - Sommers wrote, directed and produced G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra for Paramount Studios. Stephen currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife and their two daughters. Bio from official homepage.
Stephen Sommers
Director
for Director in TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (SOMMERS' DIRECTION)
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Alternate real life production history: Major hurdles for the film's initial production stages included the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike as well as the threat of strikes by other guilds, Michael Bay made the hard discission to step down as Director of the Second Transformers Film, telling Paramount that it was too big of a risk, The Film's writer Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and Composer Steve Jablonsky also left the project, for the same reasons as Michael Bay. Paramount ultimately ended up hiring Stephen Sommers to Write to Direct the Film, Resulting in Chris Columbus and Joss Whedon taking over as Director and Writer of Sommers' other film, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Sommers wrote a Decent, Emotional and compelling Script which was the only draft made and was used as the Final film. This also resulted in all the first film's Voice Cast (with the only exception of Peter Cullen) being recast, including Mark Ryan being replaced as Bumblebee by Johnny Yong Bosch, Robert Foxworth being replaced as Ratchet by Alun Armstrong, Jess Harnell being replaced as Ironhide by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (due to the discission of wanting Ironhide with a birtish accent), Hugo Weaving being replaced as Megatron by Arnold Vosloo (who had worked with Sommers on the Mummy), Charlie Adler being replaced as Starscream by Michael Wincott.
