Product Code Database
Robert Alan Cohen (born March 12, 1949) is an American director and producer of film and television. Beginning his career as an executive producer at 20th Century Fox, Cohen produced and developed numerous high-profile film and television programs, including Dragonheart, The Wiz, The Witches of Eastwick and Light of Day until he began focusing on full-time directing in the 1990s. He directed the action films The Fast and the Furious and XXX.
Upon graduation, Cohen immediately headed to Los Angeles to work as a screenwriter for Martin Jurow but soon found himself unemployed when the producer moved out of state.
After a six-month stint as a kennel boy at the Harvey Animal Hospital in West Hollywood to make ends meet, Cohen landed a job as a Script coverage for then-agent Mike Medavoy. Six weeks into his tenure at International Famous Agency (now part of ICM Partners), he distinguished himself by discovering an unheralded script he found in a slush pile of neglected screenplays. Recognizing its quality, commerciality and uniqueness, Cohen wrote in his coverage that it was "the great American screenplay and this will make an award-winning, major-cast, major-director film." He championed the piece relentlessly, with his own job at stake, as Medavoy said that he would try to sell it on that recommendation, but promising to fire Cohen if he could not. Universal bought it that afternoon for a record price, and it became the Academy Award winning movie The Sting (1973). Cohen still keeps the coverage framed on the wall of his office, as this gave him his first identity in Hollywood: "the kid who found The Sting."
Diller recommended Cohen to his friend impresario, songwriter, producer and record label founder Berry Gordy who was looking to bring his company Motown into the film business. He and Gordy connected and he was hired to be the Executive Vice President and head of Motown's motion picture division.
Cohen went to work and developed the first Motown movie from his own idea about the burgeoning phenomenon of African American Super Models he felt was perfect for Motown star Diana Ross. He sold the package to Paramount and in 1974, the cameras rolled on Mahogany in Chicago and Rome. At the same time, he developed a unique film from the Bill Brashler novel The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976) starring Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor. To direct, he hired a then unknown TV director John Badham to make his feature debut, a critical hit set in the 1930s Negro National League (1920–1931) (twenty years later, he and Badham would partner again to make a number of successful films at Universal Studios).
Departing Motown in 1978, Cohen went on to produce and direct films and television series, including Miami Vice, Light of Day, The Witches of Eastwick, Ironweed, and The Wiz.
On October 8, 1986, Rob Cohen was elected vice chairman of Keith Barish Productions, which produced feature films in a pact with Tri-Star Pictures, and previously served as president of the film studio.
In March 1997, NBC announced that it had filmed a pilot episode for a proposed television drama series named The Angel (later renamed The Guardian), for its fall 1997 schedule. The premise of the show, which was written and directed by Rob Cohen, had Thomas Ian Griffith starring as Ray Angelotti (known as The Guardian Angel), an ex-thief and martial arts expert with a sixth-degree Kenpo Karate black belt, who comes out of prison determined to right wrongs and make up for his past misdeeds. The show was not picked up.
At 52, Cohen had become an action director, directing the 2001 film The Fast and the Furious. The film was a hit, opening with $40 million its first weekend, starring relative unknowns Paul Walker and Vin Diesel.
With the success of The Fast and the Furious, Cohen partnered up with Diesel again the following year to direct xXx (in which he gave Thomas Ian Griffith a small role).
He then directed the science fiction action film Stealth (2005), which was a critical and Box-office bomb.
In 2008, he directed the third installment of The Mummy, , grossing $403 million worldwide, and he directed Blumhouse Productions' The Boy Next Door starring Jennifer Lopez in 2015.
Cohen is also a director of commercials, housed at Original Film, having made over 150 television commercials for products such Disney's Star Wars, Verizon, Ford, General Motors, Mercedes, Chevrolet, Saab Automobile and Burger King among many others.
On January 24, 2021, actress Asia Argento alleged that Cohen drugged her with Gamma-hydroxybutyrate and raped her during the filming of XXX. A representative of Cohen denied Argento's assault accusation as "absolutely false".
| 1980 | A Small Circle of Friends | |||
| 1984 | Scandalous | |||
| 1993 | ||||
| 1996 | Dragonheart | Nominated – Sitges Maria Award for Best Film | ||
| Daylight | ||||
| 1998 | The Rat Pack | Nominated – DGA Award for Outstanding Directing | ||
| 2000 | The Skulls | |||
| 2001 | The Fast and the Furious | Also executive soundtrack producer | ||
| 2002 | XXX | |||
| 2005 | Stealth | |||
| 2008 | ||||
| 2012 | Alex Cross | |||
| 2015 | The Boy Next Door | |||
| 2018 | The Hurricane Heist | |||
Producer
| 1975 | Mahogany | Berry Gordy | |
| 1976 | The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings | John Badham | |
| 1978 | Thank God It's Friday | Robert Klane | |
| Almost Summer | Martin Davidson | ||
| The Wiz | Sidney Lumet | ||
| 1985 | The Legend of Billie Jean | Matthew Robbins | Also 2nd unit director |
| 1987 | Light of Day | Paul Schrader | |
| 1990 | Bird on a Wire | John Badham | Also 2nd unit director |
| 1991 | The Hard Way |
Executive producer
| 1977 | Scott Joplin | Jeremy Kagan | |
| 1984 | The Razor's Edge | John Byrum | |
| 1987 | The Witches of Eastwick | George Miller | |
| The Monster Squad | Fred Dekker | ||
| Ironweed | Héctor Babenco | ||
| The Running Man | Paul Michael Glaser | ||
| 1988 | The Serpent and the Rainbow | Wes Craven | Also 2nd unit director |
| 1989 | Disorganized Crime | Jim Kouf | |
| 2005 | Lee Tamahori | ||
| 2015 | Ghoul | Petr Jákl | |
| 1979 | Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill | ||||
| 1984 | Miami Vice | 3 episodes | |||
| 1987 | Hooperman | Episode "Look Homeward, Dirtbag" | |||
| Private Eye | 4 episodes | ||||
| A Year in the Life | Episode "While Someone Else Is Eating or Opening a Window" | ||||
| Thirtysomething | 2 episodes | ||||
| 1988 | Almost Grown | 4 episodes | |||
| 1990 | Nasty Boys | Episode "Fire and Ice" | |||
| 1991 | The Antagonists | Episode "Pilot" | |||
| Eddie Dodd | Episode "Love and Death" | ||||
| 1994 | Vanishing Son | Creator | |||
| 2004 | The Last Ride | ||||
| 2014 | Topless Prophet | ||||
|
|
