John Lee Hancock, Jr. was born on December 15, 1956.
Hancock’s debut as a screenwriter and director was in 1991 with Hard Time Romance. He was 35.
He worked on two more films (both directed by Eastwood) as a screenwriter with A Perfect World and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Hancock made his directing effort in 2002 with the sports drama The Rookie, which was a critical and commercial success.
In 2004, he wrote and directed The Alamo, which was a critical failure and box office bomb.
In 2009, The Blind Side was a box office success and received Best Picture nomination, and won Sandra Bullock the Best Actress Oscar.
In 2013 Hancock directed Saving Mr. Banks, a film about the life of P.L. Travers and her difficult negotiations with Walt Disney over adapting her novel Mary Poppins into a feature film.
He also directed The Founder (2016), about the McDonald’s fast food chain, which was dumped by Weinstein Company.
He co-wrote the upcoming musical film The Goree Girls.