Doug Liman

Doug Liman
Liman in 2014
Born	Douglas Eric Liman[1] (1965-07-24) July 24, 1965 (age 59) New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Brown University
Occupation(s)	Film director, producer
Years active	1994–present
Father	Arthur L. Liman
Relatives	Lewis J. Liman (brother)

Douglas Eric Liman (/ˈlaɪmən/;^[2] born July 24, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing the films Swingers (1996), Go (1999), The Bourne Identity (2002), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Jumper (2008), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), American Made (2017) and Road House (2024).

Most of his career has been associated with the production company Hypnotic. He is co-owner with Dave Bartis, whom he met as an undergraduate at Brown University where they co-founded Brown Television (BTV) and the National Association of College Broadcasters (NACB).

Liman is on the advisory board of the Legal Action Center and the Arthur Liman Public Interest Program at Yale Law School.

Liman, who is Jewish, was born in New York City, the son of Ellen (née Fogelson), a painter and writer, and Arthur L. Liman, a lawyer.^[3]

Liman began making short films while still in junior high school and studied at International Center of Photography in New York City. While attending Brown University, he helped to co-found the student-run cable television station BTV and served as its first station manager. He also co-founded the NACB, the first trade association geared to student-staffed radio and television stations, in 1988.

Liman attended the graduate program at University of Southern California, where he was tapped to helm his first project in 1993, the comedy film Getting In.^[4]

Liman's first major success was Swingers, released in 1996. The film, written by Jon Favreau and based on Favreau's life, is a comedy about struggling actors amid the L.A. club milieu. Liman raised the funding and the film was made on the cheap, starring Favreau and his friends (Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston, and Patrick Van Horn), ultimately cost $250,000. The film was a critical success, and jump-started the careers of Liman and the featured actors. Liman sold the film to Miramax for $5.5 million.^[5]

Liman next directed Go (1999), which tracks the events of a drug deal gone wrong through three different points of view as plot lines diverge and reconverge; Liman was also the film's cinematographer. The film was a modest success, grossing $28.4 million worldwide against a $20 million budget, and garnered positive reviews from critics.

In 1999, Liman shot a commercial for Nike featuring Tiger Woods.

Liman next directed the 2002 action thriller The Bourne Identity starring Matt Damon, an adaptation of the 1980 Robert Ludlum novel. The film was a box office success, earning over $200 million, and began a Bourne film franchise that has since included four additional films. Liman directed only the first Bourne film, after a notoriously "chaotic" shoot disrupted his relationship with the studio.^[6] As he had personally acquired the rights to the franchise from Ludlum, he served as an executive producer for three of the four sequels (2004's The Bourne Supremacy, 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum and 2016's Jason Bourne).

Liman executive-produced and directed the first two episodes ("Premiere" and "The Model Home") of the successful Fox prime time drama The O.C. (2003–2007). Liman produced and directed a series of comedy shorts for the Chrysler Film Project and Cannes Film Festival entitled Indie Is Great.

Liman also directed Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), a comedic thriller about an increasingly distant married couple, both secretly assassins, who are hired to kill each other. The film was Liman's most commercially successful to date, and is well known for the off-screen romance that developed between stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie after making the film.

In 2005, Liman signed on to direct the pilot episode of NBC's television series Heist, which is about a season-long attempt to rob three jewelry stores on Beverly Hills' swanky Rodeo Drive. Also that same year, the production company Hypnotic has struck a deal with NBC Universal Television Studio.^[7] Shortly afterwards, he renamed the production company from Hypnotic to Dutch Oven.^[8]

His film adaptation of Steven Gould's science fiction novel Jumper was released in 2008.^[9]

In 2009, he co-founded the website 30ninjas.com which is geared towards fans of action movies and television, gaming, extreme sports and viral videos. He also maintains a blog on the site.

Liman directed 2010's Fair Game, about the Plame affair, which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.^[10]

In 2011, Liman directed and produced I Just Want My Pants Back, a television series that aired on MTV. He produced Covert Affairs and Suits, two original series on the USA Network. He directed the film adaptation of the Hiroshi Sakurazaka novel, All You Need is Kill, released as Edge of Tomorrow (2014), starring Tom Cruise. In 2017, he directed Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena in the military thriller The Wall, and directed Cruise again, in the crime-action film American Made, a biopic of pilot Barry Seal.^[11]

In August 2016, Liman signed on to direct Dark Universe, a film set within the DC Extended Universe and based on superhero team Justice League Dark after leaving the adaptation of Gambit.^[12] However, Liman has departed from the project due to schedule conflicts with the film Chaos Walking (2021), that Liman was working on that time.^[13]

In January 2020, Liman announced that the Edge of Tomorrow sequel, Live Die Repeat and Repeat, was currently in its early planning stages.^[14]

In May 2020, it was reported that Liman would be directing, writing, and producing a fictional movie shot in outer space. Tom Cruise was set to star and produce.^[15] According to reports, they would fly to space and to the International Space Station as part of the SpaceX Axiom Space-2 mission.^[16] As of 2022, no script had been finished and the film was described as "aspirational."^[17][18]

In November 2021, it was reported that Liman was in talks to direct a remake of the 1989 film Road House, with Jake Gyllenhaal starring.^[19] The film was officially greenlit on August 2, 2022, by Amazon Studios, with Liman and Gyllenhaal's involvement confirmed, with production beginning later that month in the Dominican Republic.^[20][21] He later condemned Amazon's decision to release the film straight to streaming instead of a theatrical release and would boycott its SXSW premiere as a result.^[22]

In December 2022, it was announced Liman would direct heist film The Instigators, starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, for Apple Studios, marking Liman's first film with Damon since The Bourne Identity.^[23] The film was released in select theatres on August 2, 2024, before premiering on Apple TV+ on August 9.^[24]

In January 2023, the 2023 Sundance Film Festival premiered Liman's documentary Justice, about sexual misconduct charges against 2018 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.^[25][26]

In December 2024, Liman confirmed he was in early development of the supernatural thriller Deeper for Warner Bros. Pictures, with Tom Cruise attached to star.^[27]

Director

Year	Title	Director	Producer	DoP
1994	Getting In	Yes	No	No
1996	Swingers	Yes	No	Yes
1999	Go	Yes	No	Yes
2002	The Bourne Identity	Yes	Yes	No
2005	Mr. & Mrs. Smith	Yes	No	No
2008	Jumper	Yes	No	No
2010	Fair Game	Yes	Yes	Yes
2014	Edge of Tomorrow	Yes	Executive	No
2017	The Wall	Yes	No	No
	American Made	Yes	No	No
2021	Locked Down	Yes	Executive	No
	Chaos Walking	Yes	No	No
2024	Road House	Yes	No	No
	The Instigators	Yes	No	No

Producer

• Mail Order Wife (2004)

Executive producer

• The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
• The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
• The Killing Floor (2007)
• Jason Bourne (2016)
• The Phantom (2021)

• Reckoning with Torture (2016)
• Justice (2023) (Also executive producer)

Year(s)	Title	Director	Executive Producer	Notes
2003–2004	The O.C.	Yes	Yes	Episodes "Premiere" and "The Model Home"
2006	Heist	Yes	Yes	Episode "Pilot"
2008–2009	Knight Rider	No	Yes
2010–2014	Covert Affairs	No	Yes
2011–2012	I Just Want My Pants Back	Yes	Yes	Episodes "Pilot" and "The Blackout"
2011–2019	Suits	No	Yes
2016	Captive	No	Yes
2018–2019	Impulse	Yes	Yes	Episodes "Pilot" and "Mind on Fire"
2019	Pearson	No	Yes
2022	The Recruit	Yes	Yes	Episodes "I.N.A.S.I.A.L." and "N.L.T.S.Y.P."

TV movies

Year(s)	Title	Director	Executive Producer
2007	Mr. & Mrs. Smith	Yes	Yes
2008	Knight Rider	No	Yes

Year	Award	Nomination	Title	Result
1996	MTV Movie & TV Awards	Best New Filmmaker	Swingers	Won
1999	Independent Spirit Awards	Best Director	Go	Nominated
2010	Cannes Film Festival	Palme d'Or	Fair Game	Nominated
2014	Saturn Awards	Best Director	Edge of Tomorrow	Nominated

Doug Liman's unrealized projects

• "The Liman Identity" – New York Magazine biography
• Doug Liman at IMDb
• www.30ninjas.com – Doug Liman's Action Website