 
Chris visited with students at Stanford Summer 2011
A sample of what our students had to say after their visit with Chris:
"Chris Columbus's talk made my life!"
Born in Pennsylvania and raised in Ohio, Chris Columbus was first inspired to make movies after seeing The Godfather at age 15. After enrolling at NYU film school, he sold his first screenplay while a sophomore there. After graduation, Columbus tried to sell his script, Gremlins with no success, until Steven Spielberg optioned it; Columbus moved to Los Angeles for a year during rewrites on the project in Spielberg's bungalow at Universal. After writing two more scripts for Spielberg, The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes, Columbus's own directing career was launched a few years later with Adventures in Babysitting.
Chris is best known to audiences as the director of the runaway hit Home Alone, which won a British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Film, its sequel Home Alone 2 and more recently, the first two films in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Other directorial work includes Mrs. Doubtfire, Nine Months, Stepmom, Bicentennial Man, Rent, I Love You Beth Cooper and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
Columbus founded his production company, 1492 Pictures, in 1995, and has produced numerous films for which he has not served as director. These include the Fantastic Four and Night at the Museum franchises and The Help. His company is currently developing three projects with CBS TV Studios. |