Jonathan Liebesman

Jonathan Liebesman (born 15 September 1976) is a South African film director and writer.

Personal life

Liebesman was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He studied filmmaking at the AFDA, The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance and at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

At Tisch, he co-wrote and directed an 8-minute short film, Genesis and Catastrophe, adapted from a Roald Dahl short story. The film was screened at numerous festivals around the world, and was winner of the best short at the Austin Film Festival in 2000, as well as earning Liebesman the "Hollywood Young Filmmaker Award" at the Hollywood Film Festival in 2000.

Hollywood career

In 2002, at the age of 26, he directed his debut feature Darkness Falls. Although the film suffered from generally weak reviews, it opened at no. 1 at the US box office. The film grossed over $32.5 million at the US box office, and a further $15 million worldwide. The film was nominated for Best Horror/Thriller at the Teen Choice Awards in 2003, while the film's star, Emma Caulfield, won Face of the Future from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films that year.

Megan Fox

Megan Denise Fox (born May 16, 1986) is an American actress and model. She began her acting career in 2001, with several minor television and film roles, and played a regular role on the Hope & Faith television sitcom. In 2004, she made her film debut with a role in the teen comedy Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. In 2007, she co-starred as Mikaela Banes, the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character, in the blockbuster action film Transformers, which became her breakout role. Fox reprised her role in the 2009 sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Later in 2009, she starred as the eponymous lead in the black comedy horror film Jennifer's Body. Fox is also considered one of the modern female sex symbols and has appeared in magazines such as Maxim, Rolling Stone and FHM.

Early life

Fox was born on May 16, 1986 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the daughter of Gloria Darlene (née Cisson) and Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. She is mostly of English ancestry, with smaller amounts of ancestry from elsewhere in Europe. She was raised "very strictly Pentecostal", but later attended Catholic school for twelve years. Fox's parents divorced when she was young. Fox's mother later remarried, and she and her sister were raised by her mother and her stepfather, Tony Tonachio. She said that the two were "very strict" and that she was not allowed to have a boyfriend or invite friends to her house. She lived with her mother until she made enough money to support herself.

Will Arnett

William Emerson "Will" Arnett (/ɑːrˈnɛt/; born May 4, 1970) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his many comedic roles, including George Oscar Bluth II ("G.O.B.") in the Fox series Arrested Development and Devon Banks in the NBC series 30 Rock, for which he earned a combined five Emmy Award nominations. He also appeared in the IFC series The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, the NBC series Up All Night, and in the CBS series The Millers; and in films such as Monster-in-Law, Semi-Pro, Blades of Glory, RV, Hot Rod, Let's Go to Prison, The Brothers Solomon, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Arnett is also a voice actor for commercials, video games, television cartoons and animated films, and has lent his voice to The Simpsons, Ratatouille and The Lego Movie, as well as the titular character of Netflix's original animated series BoJack Horseman.

Early life

Arnett was born in Toronto, the son of Edith Alexandra "Alix" (née Palk) and Emerson James "Jim" Arnett, who was a corporate lawyer and brewer, among other occupations. His father and mother were originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba and he has roots on both sides of his family in Manitoba going back many generations. Arnett briefly attended Lakefield College School in Lakefield, Ontario, but was asked not to return after a semester for being a troublemaker. The Subway Academy II allowed him to take theatre classes at the Tarragon Theatre. He eventually graduated from Leaside High School and attended Concordia University, Montreal for one semester, but dropped out. As a teenager, he was encouraged by his mother to pursue an acting career, auditioned for commercials in Toronto and enjoyed acting. In 1990, he moved to New York City to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. He appeared in plays in New York and his first acting role was in Felicity Huffman's independent film Erie, which was filmed on the Erie Canal.

Michael Bay

Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American filmmaker. He is known for directing big-budget action films characterized by fast cutting, stylistic visuals and extensive use of special effects, including frequent depiction of explosions. His films, which include the science fiction disaster thriller Armageddon (1998), the epic war film Pearl Harbor (2001) and the science fiction action films in the Transformers film series (2007–present), have grossed over US$5 billion worldwide. He is co-founder of commercial production house The Institute, a.k.a. The Institute for the Development of Enhanced Perceptual Awareness. He is co-chair and part-owner of the digital effects house Digital Domain. He co-owns Platinum Dunes, a production house which has remade horror movies including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Amityville Horror (2005), The Hitcher (2007), Friday the 13th (2009) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).

Despite his considerable success at the international box office, Bay's work is generally held in low esteem by film critics, and his name is often used pejoratively among art-house circles. While films such as The Rock (1996) and Transformers (2007) received generally positive reviews, his three sequels in the Transformers film series were all panned.