Robert Luketic

Australian-born director Robert Luketic had an early triumph with filmmaking. At the age of 15 he won a Best Film award at the ATOM film festival. Although barely in high school, the award propelled Luketic to pursue directing as a profession, rather than a hobby. He studied filmmaking at the Victorian College of Arts, one of Australia's most revered film schools, and in 1997 won acclaim for his comedic short, "Titsiana Booberini." The short film, about an uneasy supermarket worker, caught the attention of studio executives at MGM, who hired Luketic to direct Reese Witherspoon in the 2001 romantic comedy, "Legally Blonde." The film was an unlikely hit, grossing over $100 million at the box office, as well as catapulting Witherspoon into A-list status. Luketic's next two films, 2004's "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!"and 2005's "Monster-in-Law," were both comedies. In 2008, however, he ventured into drama with "21." That film, about a group of MIT students who learn to count cards in order to beat the house at Las Vegas casinos, was also a huge success, proving Luketic's versatility as a filmmaker. The director returned to romantic comedies in 2009 with "The Ugly Truth," starring Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl, before directing Heigl again in the 2010 action-comedy, "Killers."