John Lee Hancock

John Lee Hancock Jr. (born December 15, 1956) is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He directed the sports drama films The Rookie (2002) and The Blind Side (2009), and the historical drama films Saving Mr. Banks (2013), The Founder (2016) and The Highwaymen (2019).

Hancock's debut as a screenwriter and director came in 1991 with Hard Time Romance. He worked on two more films as a screenwriter with A Perfect World and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil before making his next directing effort in 2002 with the sports drama The Rookie, starring Dennis Quaid, whose performance was lauded. The film was a critical and commercial success. In 2004, he wrote anddirected The Alamo, a remake of the 1960 film. It starred Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric and Patrick Wilson, but it was met with negative reviews and was a huge box office bomb.

After a five-year absence, Hancock directed The Blind Side, a biographical sports drama film about Michael Oher, starring Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron. With a budget of $29 million, the film grossed over $309 million, becoming Hancock's highest-grossing film to date and received two Academy Award nominations, with Bullock winning the Academy Award for Best Actress.

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, and co-wrote the upcoming musical film The Goree Girls. In 2019 he directed his first Netflix movie The Highwaymen.

Hancock also directed the pilot of the television series Paradise Lost, which premiered on April 13, 2020.