If you like stories about real people that bring their experiences to life, then screenwriter and director John Lee Hancock has likely created some of your favorite movies. With a range from biopic to historical drama, to unique interpersonal relationships, Hancock has established himself as an award-winning teller of true stories. It wasn’t necessarily what he set out to do, but watching many of his films, I’m glad he did. Let’s take a look at his life and accomplishments…
John Lee Hancock was born on December 15th, 1956 in Longview, TX. Growing up in Texas, he attended Baylor University in Waco which was the alma mater of both his father, John Hancock Sr. and his brother, Kevin, both of whom played on Baylor’s Football team. While attending Baylor, he wrote for The Phoenix, which is a publication produced by Baylor’s English department. He earned a B.A. in English, but also a J.D. from Baylor Law School, and after his graduation, worked as an attorney for the Houston-based law firm Sowell & Ogg. It was his writing, however, that became a career.
His passion for movies made him pursue screenwriting, with the hopes of becoming a director. He relocated to Los Angeles where he became a member of the Fountainhead Theatre Company and co-founded another company called Legal Aliens Theatre where he began writing and directing plays. In 1991, Hancock directed his very first film, the romantic comedy Hard Time Romance. Unfortunately, the film was not well-received, but that same year he also wrote screenplay that caught the attention of Clint Eastwood, and Eastwood’s production company, Malpaso Productions, green-lit A Perfect World (1993), which was released in November of 1993 under the Warner Bros. label and was huge hit. Eastwood and Hancock teamed up together again to adapt Hancock’s next screenplay Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) which was also produced by Malpaso and released under Warner Bros.
Hancock briefly tried working for television, creating the drama series L.A. Doctors (1998-1999) though the show sadly didn’t last beyond its first season. He returned to movies, producing My Dog Skip in 2000, and Disney later hired him to direct The Rookie (2002) starring Dennis Quaid and written by Mike Rich. Hancock was excited at the idea of directing a film that he didn’t write the script for, explaining in an interview with Script Magazine, “It forced me to wear the director’s hat and fully embrace the idea that a script is a blueprint and that pragmatic decisions must be made every day during prep, shoot and post that enhance or even alter the locations, the scenes, the dialogue, the specific casting decisions, etc. When I direct something I’ve written, I try to look at the script as though it were written by someone else, lest I stay too deeply in love with something I’ve written just because I wrote it.” Thanks to Hancock’s guidance, “The Rookie,” received the ESPY Award for Best Movie (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award).
Two years after “Rookie,” Hancock directed Touchstone Pictures’ remake of The Alamo (2004) which reunited him with Dennis Quaid and also starred Billy Bob Thorton and Patrick Wilson. Making this film, sadly was not a good experience for Hancock because he was advised by Disney to clothe images of Liberty on the Texas drums, which wasn’t historically accurate, because real-life pictures from that era always showed liberty with one or both breasts exposed. Not only did the film not do terribly well, but it became one of the biggest box-office bombs in movie history, according to IMDB. On a more positive note though, John Lee Hancock later wrote and directed Warner Bros.’ The Blind Side (2009) starring Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron, and Tim McGraw. This film was a huge hit, and like “Rookie,” it also won the ESPY Award for Best Movie, and Hancock’s guidance also helped Sandra Bullock win both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film received a Best Picture Oscar Nomination too.
Despite a bad experience directing “The Alamo,” Hancock agreed to work with Disney again, when his agent sent him the script for Saving Mr. Banks (2013), the film that depicted the controversial relationship between Mary Poppins author Pamela Lyndon “P.L.” Travers and Walt Disney at the time when Disney pursued Travers to convince her to sell him the rights to the film adaptation of Mary Poppins (1964). This film was also well-received, and reunited Hancock with actor, Rachel Griffiths who had previously played Dennis Quaid’s wife in “The Rookie.” In “Saving Mr. Banks,” Griffiths portrayed P.L. Travers' “Aunt Ellie” who is the real-life person who inspired the character of Mary Poppins. When this film was released, there were a number of former Walt Disney Imagineers who got to attend a sneak preview of the film and they were all emotionally moved by how John Lee Hancock and screenwriter Kelly Marcel brought Walt Disney back to life again. John Lee Hancock directed The Founder in 2016 and The Highwayman in 2019. In April of this year, he directed the pilot episode of the series Paradise Lost (2020-present). His next film, The Little Things, which he wrote, produced and directed will be released in January of next year and will star Denzel Washington and Jared Leto.
John Lee Hancock is a remarkable director. Although he hasn’t directed movies quite as a Spielberg or an Eastwood, his movies are entertaining as they are fascinating. They are always well-acted, and tell inspiring, usually real-life stories.
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