Rob Cohen has done it all. Beginning as a reader for then agent Mike Medavoy, he is credited with discovering the script for “The Sting,” which became a mega-hit and Oscar winner, including Best Original Screenplay. It wasn’t long before Cohen branched out as a television executive at 20th Century Fox where he was instrumental in developing “M*A*S*H.”
From there Cohen went on to work for Motown, the fabled record label that was home to artists like Michael Jackson. Motown’s founder and president Berry Gordy wanted to expand into making movies and Cohen developed high profile movies like “Mahogany” starring Diana Ross and “The Wiz,” based on the hit Broadway musical, an African American retelling of “The Wizard of Oz,” which, like “Mahogany,” starred Diana Ross alongside Michael Jackson and several members of the original Broadway cast.
In the 1990s, Cohen turned his creative eye primarily to directing, including a personal favorite of mine, “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story,” which he also co-wrote and integrated a mystical/mythological element to what could have been a ho-hum biopic.
He directed the very first movie in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise and came to Hollywood’s Master Storytellers as part of a DVD launch campaign for that film as the first sequel was about to premiere.
