Renny Harlin

Renny Harlin (birthname: Renny Lauri Mauritanian Harjola) is the most commercially successful Finnish-born filmmaker with a durable, four-decade career as a director, screenwriter, and producer, launching (after having made two short films in his native Finland under the moniker Lauri ) his feature with his only Finnish-made movie as director/co-writer of Born American (1986), starring Mike Norris and Albert Salmi; followed by Harlin as director and uncredited writer of his first U.S. production, the horror movie Prison (1987), starring Virgo Mortensen and Lane Smith, released by Empire Pictures.

Harlin landed his first Hollywood studio project with New Line Cinema as director of the sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), starring Robert Englund, grossing a robust $49.4 million take and receiving a Saturn Award nomination for Harlin as best director.

Harlin was recruited by 20^th Century Fox as director of the infamous commercial and critical bomb (a poor $21 million box office against $20 million costs), The Adventure of Ford Fairlane (1990), starring Andrew Dice Clay, Wayne Newton, Priscilla Presley, Gilbert Gottfried, Lauren Holly, Tone Loc, Robert Englund, and Ed O’Neill. Harlin had the exact opposite experience with 20^th Century Fox the same year as director of the blockbuster hit sequel, Die Hard 2 (1990), which grossed $240 million globally and starred Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton, and John Amos.

Renny Harlin shifted to the position of producer-only on director Martha Coolidge’s acclaimed Depression drama, Rambling Rose (1991), starring Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Lukas Haas, Robert Duvall, and John Heard, (with Dern and Ladd being the first mother-daughter pair to be Oscar-nominated in Academy history) winning best film as well as best director from the Independent Spirit Awards, and released by Seven Arts. Harlin was director/producer of the action thriller, Cliffhanger (1993), co-written and starring Sylvester Stallone, with John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, Paul Winfield, and Ralph Waite, and grossing a big $255 million global take for Carolco Pictures and distributor TriStar Pictures, after premiering at the Cannes film festival.

Harlin was producer only (with co-star Geena Davis) of the Ron Underwood-directed rom-com, Speechless (1994), starring Michael Keaton, with Bonnie Bedelia, Ernie Hudson, Charles Martin Smith, and Christopher Reeve, and released to poor box office by MGM. Harlin was director/producer of the legendary commercial bomb (marking the end of Carolco Pictures), Cutthroat Island (1995), co-starring Davis, Matthew Modine, Frank Langella, and Maury Chaikin, and earning a poor $10 million against $98 million costs for distributor MGM.

Renny Harlin recovered from the previous disaster as director/producer of the entertaining thriller, The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), written and co-produced by Shane Black and co-starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, with Craig Bierko, Brian Cox, and David Morse, grossing $96 million globally for New Line Cinema. Harlin served as producer only on co-writer/director Hugh Wilson’s sci-fi rom-com for New Line Cinema, Blast from the Past (1999), starring Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken, Sissy Spacek, and Dave Foley, but provided a box-office dud (a weak $40 million worldwide gross).

Harlin reunited as director with co-star Samuel L. Jackson on the sci-if shark thriller, Deep Blue Sea (1999), starring Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane, LL Cool J, Jacqueline McKenzie, Michael Rapaport, and Stellan Skarsgård, and proved a hit for Warner Bros. with a gross of $165 million. Harlin reunited with Sylvester Stallone as director/producer of Warner Bros.’ failed auto racing drama, Driven (2001), written and starring Stallone and co-starring Burt Reynolds, Kip Pardue, Til Schweiger, and Gina Gershon, and which was panned by critics and tanked with audiences (earning only $54 million against $94 million costs).

Renny Harlin directed and was executive producer on the FBI profiler movie, Mindhunters (2004), a US/UK/Netherlands/Finland co-production starring LL Cool J, Jonny Lee Miller, Kathryn Morris, Clifton Collins Jr., Val Kilmer, and Christian Slater, and eventually released in the US by Dimension Films after 20^th Century Fox dropped it. Harlin took on the series sequel and Exorcist prequel, Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), as director, with a cast starring Stellan Skarsgård, Izabella Scorupco, and James D’Arcy, receiving poor reviews and box office, with a $78 million global gross against $50 million costs.

Harlin directed another critically-panned supernatural horror movie, The Covenant (2006), co-starring Steven Strait, Sebastian Stan, Laura Ramsey, Taylor Kitsch, and Wendy Crewson, and grossing a fair $38 million for Sony Releasing/Screen Gems/Lakeshore. Harlin once again teamed up as director with star/producer Samuel L. Jackson on the crime thriller, Cleaner (2007), with Ed Harris, Eva Mendes, Koke Palmer, Luis Guzman, and Robert Forster, but scored only 17% on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed a mere $5.8 million box office against $25 million costs for Sony Pictures/Screen Gems/Millennium Films.

Renny Harlin was director and a producer (with Mark Gordon and the WWE’s Vince McMahon) on the action movie, 12 Rounds (2009), starring John Cena, Aidan Gillen, and Steve Harris, and earning a solid $17.3 million gross for 20^th Century Fox, with two sequels to follow which Harlin did not direct or produce. Harlin did direct and made the action movie based on the 2008 Georgian/Russian conflict, 5 Days of War (2011), co-starring Andy Garcia, Val Kilmer, Richard Coyle, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Rupert Friend, Rade Šerbedžija, and Heather Graham, and earning only $.3 million box office returns (on a $12 million budget), with an Anchor Bay Entertainment release in the US.

Harlin continued doing business in Russia as director/producer on the UK/Russia co-production, Devil’s Pass (2013), starring Holly Goss and Matt Stokoe, and grossing $5.3 million in global box office returns. Harlin was director/co-writer/producer of the 3D-shot The Legend of Hercules (2014), with Kellan Lutz, Scott Adkins, Liam McIntyre, Johnathan Schaech, Roxanne McKee, and Rade Šerbedžija, returning negative reviews and poor box-returns ($61 million for the $70 million production) for Millennium Films/Summit Entertainment.

Renny Harlin’s most successful movie as director in several years was his first co-production made in China, Skiptrace (2016), starring Jackie Chan (also a producer), Johnny Knoxville, and Fan Bingbing, and returning an excellent $136.6 million global gross for its Chinese and worldwide distributors, including Saban Films in the US. Harlin was the director of his next Chinese production (with Alibaba Pictures), Legend of the Ancient Sword (2018), based on the Chinese video game Gu Jian Qi Tan 2 and co-starring Leehom Wang, Victoria Song, Godfrey Gao, and Karena Ng, but resulting in poor box-office returns ($1.25 million) despite opening on China’s “Golden Week” of movie releases.

Harlin directed his next Chinese/Hong Kong movie, the action thriller Bodies at Rest (2019), co-starring Nick Cheung, Richie Jen, Zi Yang, and Clara Lee, premiering at the Hong Kong Film Festival, and delivering a solid box office performance of $25 million. Harlin departed China and was director of the commercially and critically disastrous heist movie, The Misfits (2021), starring Pierce Brosnan, Rami Jabber, Hermoine Corfield, Tim Roth, and Nick Cannon, and grossing a poor $1.6 million (against $15 million costs).

Renny Harlin returned, as writer-director, to Finland for his first Finnish production since 1986 with the comedy sequel, Reunion 3: Singles Cruise (2021), the third entry in the Reunion movie series, co-starring Sami Hedberg, Aku Hirviniemi, and Jaajo Linnonmaa, and which was produced by Solar Films and released by Nordisk Films. Harlin directed the big-screen adaptation of the Noah Boyd (née Paul Lindsay) best-selling thriller, The Bricklayer (2024), starring Aaron Eckhart, Nina Dobrev, Tim Blake Nelson, and Clifton Collins Jr., but earned less than $1 million in a day-and-date release by Vertical Entertainment after Screen Media gave up distribution rights.

Harlin then took on the unusual assignment as director of the three-feature series, The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024), The Strangers: Chapter 2 (2024), and The Strangers: Chapter 3 (2024), co-written by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland (based on Bryan Bertino’s story) and co-starring Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez, and produced and released by Lionsgate Films.

Renny Harlin was hired as director of the oceanic disaster movie, Deep Water (date to be announced), starring Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, and Kate Fitzpatrick, which was produced by Arclight Films and KISS member Gene Simmons’s production company, Simmons/Hamilton Productions. Harlin came on board as director of the Bulgarian/American co-production, The Refuge (shot in 2021 and released in 2024), with Jason Flemyng, Raza Jaffrey, and Johanna Harlin, and then Harlin returned to his native Finland as director/co-writer of the murder mystery-comedy, Komisario Palmu (date to be announced).