American producer of independent low-budget features turned screenwriter of Hollywood blockbusters. After working on the fringes of the industry for some years and then surviving the frustrations of one development deal after another, James V. Hart finally burst upon the scene with two back-to-back screenplays for two titans of contemporary American filmmaking--Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. With the one-two punch of "Hook" (1991) and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), he was catapulted to the A-list of Hollywood screenwriters. Hart points to his family as "The Story Department"; his young son gave him the idea for the central conceit of "Hook": "What if Peter Pan grew up?" He followed as one of the contributors of "Muppet Treasure Island" (1996) and with Michael Goldenberg adapted Carl Sagan's sci-fi novel "Contact" (1997).
- Also Credited As:
Jim Hart, Jim V. Hart
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Job Titles:
Producer, Writer
Family
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Daughter: Julia Hart.
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Son: Jake Hart.
Significant Others
Education
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Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, broadcast film arts
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Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, finance and economics
Milestones
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1970 Drove from Texas to San Francisco with a filmmaker friend on the chance of meeting Francis Ford Coppola
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1970 Met with Coppola who advised him to keep making movies
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1977 Produced Assault on Paradise/Maniac/Ransom , a crime thriller starring Oliver Reed
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1977 Wrote his first Dracula adaptation
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1984 First produced screenplay, Gimme an F , a comedy about a spastic cheerleading squad
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1991 First produced screenplay for a major motion picture, Steven Spielberg s Hook (also executive produced with Dodi Fayed)
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1992 Wrote and co-produced Francis Ford Coppola s Bram Stoker s Dracula
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1997 Co-scripted Contact , adapted from the Carl Sagan novel
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Began writing in earnest in the late 1970s
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Produced Summer Run , the first of several low-budget independent productions
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Raised in Fort Worth, TX