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

Biography

Stephen Sommers was born in Dayton, Ohio, but grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He attended 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 Masters Degree, as well as wrote and directed an award-winning short film called Perfect Alibi. (It was also there that he met a student named Bob Ducsay, who edited the short and has gone on to edit all of Stephen's movies.) Perfect Alibi helped Stephen 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 a modest budget of $300,000. The film was released theaterically 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 (1993) for Walt Disney Pictures, as well as Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1994). 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.

1999 was the year that changed Sommers' career forever, when he wrote and directed Universal Studio's 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.

Sommers returned in 2004 with Van Helsing, a movie pitting legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing against the triumvirate of Universal movie monsters: 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.

After some delays, it appears Sommers' next film will be a remake of When Worlds Collide, to be executive produced by Steven Spielberg. There's also been talk of an 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 also reportedly decided not to direct a third Mummy film, though he may still be a producer.

Filmography

• Flash Gordon (2007) (director, writer, producer) - announced
• Magic Kingdom for Sale (2006) (director, producer) - announced
• Airborn (2006) (director, producer) - pre-production
• When Worlds Collide (2006) (director, writer, producer) - pre-production
• Revenge of the Mummy (rollercoaster preride film) (2004) (director, writer)
• Van Helsing The London Assignment (2004) (producer)
• Van Helsing (2004) (director, writer, producer)
• The Scorpion King (2002) (writer, producer)
• The Mummy Returns (2001) (director, writer)
• The Mummy (1999) (director, writer)
• Deep Rising (1998) (director, writer)
• Oliver Twist (TV movie) (executive producer)
• Tom and Huck (1995) (writer, executive producer)
• The Jungle Book (1994) (director, writer)
• Gunmen (1994) (writer)
• The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993) (director, writer)
• Catch Me If You Can (1989) (director, writer)

Trivia

• His one and only cameo in a movie was as an uncredited man on a raft in a nighttime scene in The Adventures of Huck Finn.
• Founded his own production company (along with editor/producing partner Bob Ducsay), The Sommers Company, in 2004.
• Appeared at the 2003 San Diego ComiCon to promote Van Helsing, along with the entire cast.
• Met Bob Ducsay in film school, who has edited all of his movies since.
• Was nominated for two Saturn Awards for Best Director and Best Writer for The Mummy by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.
• Appeared on AMC's Sunday Morning Shootout on June 27, 2004.
• Named a pilot character in both The Mummy Returns and Gunmen after his pet dog of 12 years, Izzy. Izzy died in 2001.
• Stephen's oldest daughter, Samantha June, appears in Van Helsing as the "Vampire Child" in the balcony during the Halloween ball. (The other girl is Sommers' niece.)
• His favorite movies are romantic-comedies.
• Favorite director is Michael Curtiz.
• His father, Dr. Stephen D. Sommers, died in 2004. Van Helsing is dedicated in his memory.
• Height: 6'2"
• Married his wife, Jana, on July 24, 1993. They live in Santa Barbara, California with their two daughters.
• The four films that made him want to make movies were Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Swiss Family Robinson, and Jason and the Argonauts.
• Always keeps a couple of props from his movies. Has the map from the opening credits of The Jungle Book in his hallway.
• Is good friends with Kevin J. O'Connor and has worked with him in Deep Rising, The Mummy, and Van Helsing.
• Industrial Light & 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."

External links

• Official website for The Sommers Company
• Stephen Sommers Fans (Yahoo Groups)

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