Rupert Wyatt

British writer and director Rupert Wyatt rose to international fame in 2011 after directing the mega successful action sci-fi reboot, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." Born and raised in England, Wyatt began directing short films while still a teenager and quickly proved to be successful at it. At the age of 16, Wyatt's first directorial effort won a film competition sponsored by the BBC, and only cemented his ambition to make filmmaking a career. He studied film at Winchester College, and later moved to Paris where he began writing screenplays for the French film producers Claudie Ossard and Jean-Pierre Ramsay. Around the late '90s, Wyatt also co-founded the film collective known as Picture Farm, which produced several award-winning short films, features and documentaries, including the award-winning "Dark Days" (2000). Throughout the early 2000s Wyatt spent most of his days directing episodic British TV shows by day, while developing his own screenplays by night. One of those scripts was a prison escape movie called "The Escapist." Wyatt eventually secured funding to direct the film and with the help of Picture Farm, which produced it, premiered "The Escapist" at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. "The Escapist" was a hit with critics and audiences, thus highlighting Wyatt as a talented young director to watch. For his next film, Wyatt was hired to helm the blockbuster reboot of "The Planet of the Apes" movies, using all the glitz and glam of Hollywood's best special effects magicians. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" was a smash hit when it was released in August of 2011, racking up nearly $500 million at the global office, while receiving glowing reviews from critics. Hot off the success of that film, Wyatt directed Mark Wahlberg, Jessica Lange and Brie Larson in the 2014 crime thriller "The Gambler." William Monahan, who won an Oscar in 2007 for writing "The Departed" (2006), wrote the script, about an esteemed literature professor who can barely control his self-destructive impulses.