Andrew Davis is a filmmaker with a reputation for directing intelligent thrillers, most notably the Academy Award-nominated box-office hit The Fugitive (1993), starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. The film received seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and earned Jones a Best Supporting Actor award. Davis garnered a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director and a Directors Guild of America nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Direction.
Davis is the son of parents who met in a repertory theater company in Chicago, where he was raised. Andy received his degree in journalism from the University of Illinois and began his work in motion pictures as an assistant cameraman to renowned cinematographer and director Haskell Wexler on the 1969 classic Medium Cool (1969). Wexler’s ultra-realistic approach was to have a great influence on Davis, who then became a director of photography on numerous award-winning television commercials, documentaries and feature films, such as Barry Pollack’s Cool Breeze (1972), Paul Bartel’s Private Parts (1972), George Armitage’s Hit Man (1972) or The Slams directed by Jonathan Kaplan, with whom he collaborated again on Over the Edge (1979).
Davis made his directorial debut in 1978 with the critically acclaimed independent musical Stony Island (1978), which he also co-wrote and produced. The thriller The Final Terror (1983) was Davis’ sophomore project, for producer Joe Roth, which starred then- newcomers Darryl Hanah, Joe Pantoliano, Rachel Ward and Adrian Zmed. Davis then co-wrote the screenplay for Harry Belafonte’s hip-hop musical Beat Street (1984) directed by Stan Lathan before moving into the director’s chair full-time for Mike Medavoy and Orion Pictures on the Chuck Norris classic Code of Silence (1985). Davis directed, co-produced and co-wrote Steven Seagal’s feature film debut, Above the Law (1988), for Warner. After The Package (1989), starring Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones, Davis went on to direct 1992’s top grossing picture, Under Siege (1992), a classic Warner action film teaming Steven Seagal with Tommy Lee Jones.
Davis’ other directorial credits include Steal Big Steal Little (1995), starring Andy Garcia and Alan Arkin; Chain Reaction (1996), starring Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman and Rachel Weisz; A Perfect Murder (1998), starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen, and Collateral Damage (2002), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Davis next directed and produced Holes, the feature film adaptation of Louis Sachar’s beloved Newberry Medal and National Book Award-winning children’s novel. Starring Shia Labeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight and Patricia Arquette and released by the Walt Disney Company, Holes was named one of the 100 Best Family Films.
In 2006, Davis completed the Disney/Touchstone feature film The Guardian, starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher, which honors the Rescue Swimmers of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Presently, Davis is developing several projects through his Santa Barbara based production company, Chicago Pacific Entertainment, including Silvers Gold – A Return to Treasure Island, a modern retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic, adapting the Gene Wilder novella “My French Whore”, and Mentors – a series for worldwide television with a pilot episode examining the lives of two legendary photographers. Davis recently completed his first novel, alongside writer Jeff Biggers, “Disturbing the Bones”, a geopolitical thriller involving the world threatening discovery of rouge weapons found in Southern Illinois by a Chicago detective and a young female archaeologist set for US release in summer by Melville House Publishing.
