Midnight Sun Pictures
| Renny Harlin | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Lauri Mauritz Harjola 15 March 1959 Riihimäki, Finland |
| Occupation |
Director Producer Screenwriter |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Spouse(s) | Geena Davis (1993–1998) |
| Children |
with Tiffany Browne: Luukas Mattison Mauritz (b. 1997) |
| Website | www |
Renny Harlin (born Lauri Mauritz Harjola; 15 March 1959) is a Finnish film director, producer and screenwriter. His films include A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Deep Blue Sea and Driven.
Harlin's movies have earned $525,410,873 in the United States and $1,160,546,146 in the worldwide aggregate box office as of October 2016, making him the 115th highest-grossing director in the global film market. His film Cutthroat Island held the Guinness world record for "Biggest Box-Office Flop of All Time".
Harlin was born in Riihimäki, Finland, to a nurse and a physician.
Harlin started his career in the film business in the beginning of 1980s, directing commercials and company films for companies like Shell. Later, he worked as a buyer for a Finnish film distributor and met Finnish Markus Selin in Los Angeles in 1982. They became friends and started writing a screenplay called "Arctic Heat", which later evolved into Born American, with Mike Norris in the leading role. They secured financing from the USA, and in 1986 Born American became the most expensive Finnish film ever opened in the USA in over 1,000 theaters and reached number 9.
Harlin moved to Los Angeles and got a job from Irwin Yablans, who offered him a script of Prison to film. The film was made with a low budget and distributed with only 42 copies. In the same year, 1988, he got a job from New Line Cinema to direct A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) after meeting producer Robert Shaye, who at the first didn't want Harlin to direct the film. It became the highest-grossing film in the series until the 2003 release of Freddy vs. Jason , and its budget was seven times greater than the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.
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Wikipedia