Jonathan Liebesman

Jonathan Liebesman was born in Johannesburg South Africa on September 15 1976 He would remain in his home country studying filmmaking at the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance until 1996 that year he traveled to New York City to visit his cousin who was attending New York University Soon after the visit Jonathan enrolled at NYUs Tisch School of the Arts For his student first film Jonathan turned Roald Dahls short story Genesis and Catastrophe 2000 into a 8minute awardwinning short that help him land Hollywood representation accolades included the 2000 Hollywood Film Festivals Young Filmmaker Award and the Austin Film Festivals Student Short Film Award Jonathan would make his featurefilm debut in 2002 with Darkness Falls 2003 a dark twist on the Tooth Fairy tale that opened at 1 at the box office despite being critically panned It also served as the bigscreen debut for Emma Caulfield Ford long a fanfavorite as Anya Jenkins on Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1997 Rings 2005 his short film that connected The Ring 2002 and its sequel was first released as a bonus disc with the rerelease of The Ring on DVD The short caught the attention of Michael Bay and his production company Platinum Dunes and soon Jonathan was installed as the director of the companys project The Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Beginning 2006 a prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003 the widely successful remake of the original Initially announced as the director of the Friday the 13th reboot Jonathans next feature would instead be The Killing Room 2009 with Peter Stormare Chloë Sevigny Clea DuVall Timothy Hutton Nick Cannon and Shea Whigham The psychological thriller played the festival circuit before being released on DVD in the United States A few months before The Killing Rooms Sundance world premiere in January 2009 Jonathan was announced as the director of Battle Los Angeles 2011 an alieninvasion film starring Aaron Eckhart and released by Columbia Pictures The scifiaction film was a worldwide hit and put Jonathan in the running for a handful of bigstudio pictures Before Battle LAs release he had handed the job of directing Odysseus as Warner Bros though that project remains in development at this time Instead Jonathan took the reins for Wrath of the Titans 2012 the sequel to successful but maligned Clash of the Titans 2010