Roger Kumble


Roger Kumble is an American film director, screenwriter, and playwright.

Biography

Kumble was raised in Harrison, New York and attended Harrison High School. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1988, where he wrote for the "Waa Mu" show. He began his career as a playwright and director in 1993 with the Hollywood satire "Pay or Play", which garnered him the LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Comic Writing. His second play, 1997's "d girl", starring David Schwimmer, earned him four Dramalogue Awards. In 2003, Kumble completed his Hollywood trilogy with the critically acclaimed "Turnaround", again starring David Schwimmer, which sold out its entire run in Los Angeles.
Kumble made his feature-film-directorial debut with 1999's Sony Pictures box-office hit, Cruel Intentions, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair. His screenplay transposed the French novel Dangerous Liaisons to modern New York.
He followed with the Sony Pictures comedy The Sweetest Thing, starring Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Jason Bateman and Thomas Jane, and New Line Cinema's Just Friends, starring Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Amy Smart. Both Sweetest Thing and Just Friends were voted two of the top twenty underrated films of the decade by the New York Post.
He also directed Martin Lawrence, Raven-Symoné and Donny Osmond in Disney's successful family-comedy College Road Trip. His next film, Furry Vengeance, starring Brendan Fraser and Brooke Shields, was released in April 2010.
Most recently, he has directed episodes of the television series Entourage, Suits, Pretty Little Liars, Revenge and Ringer starring Cruel Intentions actors Sarah Michelle Gellar and Sean Patrick Thomas. In August 2019, it was announced that Kumble had been named director for After We Collided, sequel to the 2019 film After.

Filmography as writer

L.A. Weekly Award Best Comic Writing "Pay or Play" 1993