Robert Luketic
Encyclopedia
Robert Luketic is an Australia
n film director
. He directed the films Monster-in-Law
, Legally Blonde
and 21
.
, Australia
, the elder of two children born to an Italian mother and Croatian
father.
He first attracted Hollywood's attention with his award-winning short film Titsiana Booberini
. After screening to much acclaim at several festivals within Australia, Titsiana Booberini became a hit at many internationally renowned festivals including the Sundance Film Festival
. It won "Best Film" at the Aspen Shortsfest.
Luketic directed the smash hit comedy Legally Blonde
for MGM in the summer of 2001. This film, which grossed close to $100 million domestically and was nominated for two Golden Globe Award
s, marked Luketic's feature film directing debut.
Next, Luketic directed the Dreamworks Pictures film Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
. The 2003 film
, produced by Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher at Red Wagon, stars Kate Bosworth
, Nathan Lane
, Josh Duhamel
and Topher Grace
. In 2005, he directed Monster-in-Law
, starring Jennifer Lopez
, Jane Fonda
(who had come out of a 15-year hiatus for this film) and Michael Vartan
.
In 2008, Luketic released 21
, based on the book Bringing Down the House
by Ben Mezrich
. The film tells the true story of five MIT
students who became experts at counting cards and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings. The film stars Kevin Spacey
, Kate Bosworth
, Jim Sturgess
and Laurence Fishburne
.
He directed the romantic comedy The Ugly Truth
, which opened in July 2009. Starring Katherine Heigl
and Gerard Butler
, the film follows a morning show producer (Heigl) who sets out to disprove the outrageous relationship theories of her chauvinistic correspondent (Butler). Luketic next directed the action-comedy Killers
, starring Heigl and Ashton Kutcher
.
He currently resides in Los Angeles
.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. He directed the films Monster-in-Law
Monster-in-Law
Monster-in-Law is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Luketic and starring Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda, Michael Vartan and Wanda Sykes. It marks a return to cinema for Fonda, being her first film in 15 years after Stanley & Iris. The screenplay is written by Anya Kochoff...
, Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Robert Luketic, written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and produced by Marc E. Platt...
and 21
21 (2008 film)
21 is a 2008 drama film directed by Australian director Robert Luketic and stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, and Aaron Yoo. The film is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in Bringing Down the House, the...
.
Early life
Robert Luketic was born in SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the elder of two children born to an Italian mother and Croatian
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
father.
Career
Luketic cultivated his film career early when he won his first award for "Best Film" at the ATOM Film Festival at the age of 15. Luketic went on to study at the Victorian College of Arts – School of Film and Television (VCA), one of Australia's most prestigious film schools.He first attracted Hollywood's attention with his award-winning short film Titsiana Booberini
Titsiana Booberini
Titsiana Booberini is a short film written and directed by Robert Luketic and released in 1997.Initially entered at the Telluride Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, the films success led to it being screened at film festivals all over the world...
. After screening to much acclaim at several festivals within Australia, Titsiana Booberini became a hit at many internationally renowned festivals including the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. It won "Best Film" at the Aspen Shortsfest.
Luketic directed the smash hit comedy Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Robert Luketic, written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and produced by Marc E. Platt...
for MGM in the summer of 2001. This film, which grossed close to $100 million domestically and was nominated for two Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
s, marked Luketic's feature film directing debut.
Next, Luketic directed the Dreamworks Pictures film Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! is a 2004 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Luketic and starring Kate Bosworth, Topher Grace, and Josh Duhamel.- Plot :...
. The 2003 film
2003 in film
The year 2003 in film involved some significant events. Releases of sequels took place with movies like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Pokémon Heroes, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,...
, produced by Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher at Red Wagon, stars Kate Bosworth
Kate Bosworth
Catherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...
, Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane is an American actor of stage and screen. He is best known for his roles as Mendy in The Lisbon Traviata, Albert in The Birdcage, Max Bialystock in the musical The Producers, Ernie Smuntz in MouseHunt, Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to...
, Josh Duhamel
Josh Duhamel
Joshua David "Josh" Duhamel is an American actor and former fashion model. He first achieved acting success in 1999 as Leo du Pres on ABC's All My Children and later as the chief of security, Danny McCoy, on NBC's Las Vegas...
and Topher Grace
Topher Grace
Christopher John "Topher" Grace is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Eric Forman on the Fox sitcom That '70s Show, Eddie Brock/Venom in the Sam Raimi film Spider-Man 3, and Edwin in the 2010 film Predators....
. In 2005, he directed Monster-in-Law
Monster-in-Law
Monster-in-Law is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Luketic and starring Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda, Michael Vartan and Wanda Sykes. It marks a return to cinema for Fonda, being her first film in 15 years after Stanley & Iris. The screenplay is written by Anya Kochoff...
, starring Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
, Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
(who had come out of a 15-year hiatus for this film) and Michael Vartan
Michael Vartan
Michael S. Vartan is a French-American film and television actor. He is probably best known for the role of Michael Vaughn on the American television action drama Alias...
.
In 2008, Luketic released 21
21 (2008 film)
21 is a 2008 drama film directed by Australian director Robert Luketic and stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, and Aaron Yoo. The film is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in Bringing Down the House, the...
, based on the book Bringing Down the House
Bringing Down the House (book)
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions is a book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MIT card counters commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team. While represented as non-fiction by Mezrich and Free Press, the book contains significant fictional elements...
by Ben Mezrich
Ben Mezrich
Ben Mezrich is an American author from Princeton, New Jersey. He graduated magna-cum-laude with a degree in Social Studies from Harvard University in 1991. Some of his books have been written under the pseudonym Holden Scott. Mezrich attended Princeton Day School, in Princeton, New Jersey...
. The film tells the true story of five MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
students who became experts at counting cards and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings. The film stars Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
, Kate Bosworth
Kate Bosworth
Catherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...
, Jim Sturgess
Jim Sturgess
James Anthony "Jim" Sturgess is an English actor and singer-songwriter. His breakthrough role was appearing as Jude in the musical romance drama film Across the Universe .-Early life:...
and Laurence Fishburne
Laurence Fishburne
Laurence John Fishburne III is an American film and stage actor, playwright, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, as Cowboy Curtis on the 1980's television show Pee-wee's Playhouse, and as singer-musician Ike Turner...
.
He directed the romantic comedy The Ugly Truth
The Ugly Truth (film)
The Ugly Truth is a 2009 American romantic comedy film starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. The film was released in North America on July 24, 2009, produced by Lakeshore Entertainment for Columbia Pictures .- Plot :...
, which opened in July 2009. Starring Katherine Heigl
Katherine Heigl
Katherine Marie Heigl is an American actress and producer. She is possibly best known for her role as Dr. Izzie Stevens on ABC's Grey's Anatomy from 2005 to 2010, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series in 2007...
and Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler
Gerard James Butler is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in...
, the film follows a morning show producer (Heigl) who sets out to disprove the outrageous relationship theories of her chauvinistic correspondent (Butler). Luketic next directed the action-comedy Killers
Killers (2010 film)
Killers is a 2010 American romantic comedy action film starring Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Tom Selleck and Catherine O'Hara. The film was released in the United States and Canada on June 4, 2010...
, starring Heigl and Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher
Christopher Ashton Kutcher , best known as Ashton Kutcher, is an American actor, producer, former fashion model and comedian, best known for his portrayal of Michael Kelso in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show...
.
He currently resides in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.