Early life and career

De Bont was born to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands, one of 17 children. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan Ditvoorst. He first came to fame in the Netherlands as the cinematographer for the 1973 movie Turkish Delight, directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Rutger Hauer and Monique van de Ven. Since the early 1980s, he worked frequently in Hollywood.

While serving as cinematographer for the 1981 film Roar, De Bont experienced one of many on-set injuries during filming, where a lion lifted his scalp, requiring 220 stitches.

Directing

De Bont made his directorial debut with the action thriller Speed in 1994, which was a surprise hit. He followed this up with the even more successful Twister in 1996. His output since has had mixed commercial and critical success. In 1997, he returned to direct the sequel Speed 2: Cruise Control, which was a commercial and critical failure. In 1999, he directed The Haunting remake. It was a commercial success, but was heavily panned by critics, receiving five Razzie Award nominations and being widely considered one of the worst remakes in cinema history.

Personal life

He was married to Dutch actress Monique van de Ven from 1973 to 1988. Monique starred in the 1973 film Turkish Delight, for which De Bont did the cinematography. De Bont has two children from his second marriage with Trish Reeves, Alexander (who had a part in Speed 2) and Anneke (who had a part in Twister).

Filmography

Year	Film	Director	Producer	Cinematographer	Notes
1971	Business Is Business	No	No	Yes
1973	Turkish Delight	No	No	Yes
1975	Keetje Tippel	No	No	Yes
1981	Private Lessons	No	No	Yes
1981	Roar	No	No	Yes
1983	Cujo	No	No	Yes
	The Fourth Man	No	No	Yes
	All the Right Moves	No	No	Yes
1984	Bad Manners (aka: Growing Pains)	No	No	Yes
1985	Flesh & Blood	No	No	Yes
1986	Ruthless People	No	No	Yes
1987	Who's That Girl?	No	No	Yes
	Leonard Part 6	No	No	Yes
1988	Die Hard	No	No	Yes
1989	Black Rain	No	No	Yes
	Bert Rigby, You're a Fool	No	No	Yes
1990	The Hunt for Red October	No	No	Yes
	Flatliners	No	No	Yes
1992	Lethal Weapon 3	No	No	Yes
	Basic Instinct	No	No	Yes
1994	Speed	Yes	No	No	Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Director
1996	Twister	Yes	No	No
1997	Speed 2: Cruise Control	Yes	Yes	No	Also writer Nominated—Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay Nominated—Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture Nominated—Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director
1999	The Haunting	Yes	No	No	Nominated—Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director
2002	Equilibrium	No	Yes	No
	Minority Report	No	Yes	No
2003	Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life	Yes	No	No
2012	Nema Aviona Za Zagreb	No	No	Yes

Lost Godzilla project

De Bont began pre-production on an American Godzilla film for a summer 1996 release, but quit the film at the end of 1994 when Sony Pictures would not approve his budget request.

Collaborations

	Speed	Twister	Speed 2	The Haunting
Sandra Bullock	N		N
Todd Field		N		N
Richard Lineback	N	N
Joe Morton	N		N
Glenn Plummer	N		N
Alan Ruck	N	N

[ Source: Wikipedia ]