Chris Columbus

The Home Alone director who made the first two Harry Potter films and produced the third.

Chris Columbus, born September 10, 1958, is an American filmmaker who directed the first two Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 2001 and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in 2002, and produced Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004.

Born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, he studied film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and wrote the screenplays for Gremlins, The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes before directing Adventures in Babysitting in 1987.

Quick Facts

Birth name

Christopher Joseph Columbus

Born

10 September 1958

Birthplace

Spangler, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Education

New York University (BA)

Occupation

Director
producer
screenwriter

Years active

1984–present

Spouse

Monica Devereux (1983)

Children

Facts from the source article.

Background

He found major success with Home Alone in 1990 and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, then Mrs. Doubtfire with Robin Williams in 1993, though his other 1990s films met a lukewarm reception. The Potter adaptations returned him to commercial success.

Columbus later directed Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Pixels, and produced The Help, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. He co-founded 1492 Pictures in 1995 and Maiden Voyage Pictures with his daughter in 2014, and he has a long collaboration with composer John Williams across the first two Home Alone and Harry Potter films.

At NYU, where his classmates included Charlie Kaufman and Alec Baldwin, he lost his scholarship and took a factory job, secretly writing a screenplay on shifts that helped him find an agent.