Chris Columbus

Chris Joseph Columbus (born September 10, 1958) is an American filmmaker.

Born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, Columbus studied film at Tisch School of the Arts where he developed an interest in filmmaking.

After writing screenplays for several teen comedies in the mid-1980s, he made his directorial debut with a teen adventure, Adventures in Babysitting (1987).

In 1980, while at NYU, Columbus directed a short film entitled I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here that was later noticed by Steven Spielberg.

Columbus' professional career began in the early 1980s, as a writer for the screenplay of Reckless (1984).

Columbus later said, "it wasn't my best work. I intended it to be semi-biographical ... and the film was based on my attempts to break free. But the director turned it into a clumsy teen sex drama and the experience was so degrading."

In the late 1980s, fellow filmmaker John Hughes approached Columbus to direct Home Alone (1990), a comedy film written by Hughes, where eight-year-old Kevin McCallister must defend his home from two burglars.

Columbus had left National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation before shooting started, because of a personality clash with actor Chevy Chase, who Columbus said treated him "like dirt".

Columbus particularly enjoyed the Christmas theme of the Home Alone script and quickly accepted the offer.

Subsequently, Columbus hired Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, and Catherine O'Hara as the principal cast.

In late 1981, he eventually received a phone call from Steven Spielberg, who expressed an interest buying the script.

Upon release, the film was a critical success.

Dissatisfied, Columbus conceived a new screenplay whilst living in an apartment loft, a comedy-horror titled Gremlins (1984).

Columbus then moved to Los Angeles to work for Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, writing more scripts including The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes (both 1985).

After staying in Los Angeles for two years, he said, "There's an unreality to the place, a lack of connection with real people."

He decided to move back to New York City.

He wrote episodes for the animated series Galaxy High (1986) and received screenwriting credit for Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989).

Columbus then started his directing career with the teen comedy Adventures in Babysitting (1987).

The film received mixed reviews from critics and was regarded as a "mediocre debut".

Next, he wrote and directed Heartbreak Hotel (1988) which is a story about Elvis Presley being kidnapped and finding himself offering counsel and help to a small-town family.

The film was a commercial failure at the box office and it also received mixed-to-negative reviews.

Columbus gained recognition soon after with the highly successful Christmas comedy Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).

He went on to direct several other films throughout the 1990s, which were mostly met with lukewarm reception.

Filming took four months between February and May 1990 and the film was released to theaters on November 16, 1990, to commercial success.

The comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), starring Robin Williams, was another box office success for Columbus.

However, he found commercial success again for directing the film adaptations of J. K. Rowling's novels, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).

In addition to directing, Columbus was a producer for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), and the drama The Help (2011).

He also directed the fantasy Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) and the 3D action comedy Pixels (2015).

Columbus is the co-founder of 1492 Pictures, a film production company that has produced some of his films since 1995.

More recently, he co-founded another production firm with his daughter in 2014, called Maiden Voyage Pictures.

I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

In 2017, he launched ZAG Animation Studios, alongside Michael Barnathan, Haim Saban, and Jeremy Zag.

Columbus is also known for his collaboration with composer John Williams, with whom he had worked on the film Home Alone and the film series Harry Potter.

Columbus was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, and raised in Champion, Ohio, the only child born to Mary Irene (née Puskar), a factory worker, and Alex Michael Columbus, an aluminum plant worker and coal miner.

He is of Italian and Czech descent.

As a child, he enjoyed drawing storyboards and began making 8mm films in high school.

After graduating from John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio, he went on to study at New York University's film school at the Tisch School of the Arts, where he was a schoolmate of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Alec Baldwin.

Although he received a scholarship, he forgot to renew it and was forced to take a factory job to pay for schooling.

While on shifts, he secretly worked on a 20-page screenplay, which one of his teachers would later use to help him get an agent.

Columbus now states that the experience "saved my life" and he was able to acknowledge "the terrifying reality I faced of having to live and work in that factory for the rest of my life in that town if I didn't make it".