- Born
- Height6′ 0½″ (1.84 m)
- Stephen Sommers was born on March 20, 1962 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Raised in St. Cloud, Minnesota, he attended St. John's University and the University of Seville in Spain. Afterward, Sommers spent the next four years performing as an actor in theater groups and managing rock bands throughout Europe.
From there, he relocated to Los Angeles and attended the USC School of Cinema-Television for three years, earning a Masters Degree, where he wrote and directed an award winning short film called "Perfect Alibi". With independent funding, he wrote and directed his first motion picture Catch Me If You Can (1989) which was filmed on location in his hometown St. Cloud, Minnesota. Sommers then went on to write and direct The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993) as well as the latest version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1994) both for Walt Disney Pictures. Sommers also wrote the screenplays for the grade-B action flick Gunmen (1993) and the Disney adventure Tom and Huck (1995) which he also executive produced. He also wrote and directed the suspense-thriller Deep Rising (1998), and the latest version of The Mummy (1999). For television, Sommers wrote and executive produced Oliver Twist (1997) for director Tony Bill.
Most recently, he wrote and directed the sequel to The Mummy (1999), titled The Mummy Returns (2001), as well as the horror-thriller-action epic Van Helsing (2004), and the live-action adaptation G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009).- IMDb Mini Biography By: matt-282 - At 28 he attended College in Spain for 2 years then joined a group of buskers in Paris. He then turned to managing bands in Paris, London and Dublin He next switched to managing street theatre groups in Paris and Amsterdam where he ended up as a night club story teller.Having always enjoyed writing and telling stories he decided to head for Hollywood where he attended the University of Southern California Film School and met Bob Ducsay and Greg Michael who have been with him ever since as his film editor and 2nd unit director respectively. In his last semester Stephen had his script for Perfect Alibi chosen as the student production with himself as director.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpouseJana Sommers(July 24, 1993 - present) (2 children)
- Children
- His movies are based on classics
- His films often have no opening credits (e.g. The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), Van Helsing (2004), G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)).
- His films rely very heavily on CGI special effects
- His movies contain non-stop action
- Industrial Light and Magic jokingly created the "Stephen Sommers Scale" to measure the extent of digital effects used in a given movie scene. The four parts of the scale, from lowest to highest, are "What the Shot Needs", "What the Computers Can Handle", "Oh my God, the Computers Are About to Crash", and finally "What Stephen Wants".
- Attended St. John's University and the University of Seville in Spain.
- Attended the USC School in Cinema-Television for three years, receiving his Master's degree.
- Attended and graduated from Apollo High School in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
- Has two daughters with his wife Jana Sommers: Samantha Sommers (born 1996) and Ashley Sommers (born 1999).
- [He has just demonstrated (badly) what emotion he wants in a chase scene, then looks at the camera] You see that? That was me acting. That's why I stay back here.
- Don't let them tell you less is more. More is more.
- [on why he will not be a screenwriter for "Magic Kingdom for Sale"] I usually write everything I direct, and I'm tired of working seven days a week. It'll be fun to turn to Lowell and Babaloo and go, 'You figure it out.'
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