Movie director, born in 1943 in Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. He started out as a cinematographer in the Netherlands, before moving to American movies, like "Cujo", "Die Hard", "The Hunt for Red October", "Flatliners", and "Basic Instinct". He had a fairly good directorial debut with "Speed", but followed it up with the dreadful "Speed 2: Cruise Control", the idiotic "Twister", and the un-frightening remake of "The Haunting."
De Bont is less a movie director than he is a special effects director, and worse, he appears to be mistakenly convinced of his own genius. He seems to be conspiring with other hack directors like Joel Schumacher, Michael Bay, and Emmerich and Devlin to destroy the art of filmmaking in favor of bigger explosions and fancier special effects.
Nature herself tried to take him out in the early '80s, when he was attacked and scalped by a lion on the set of a movie called "Roar". Damn that clumsy, clumsy Nature. |