Menno Meyjes
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Menno Meyjes (born 1954, Bloemendaal, the Netherlands) is a multi-award-winning Dutch-born screenwriter, director, and producer whose career spans both Hollywood and European cinema. He moved to the United States in 1972 to study at the San Francisco Art Institute, where his teachers included George Kuchar, James Broughton, and Larry Jordan.
Meyjes first gained international recognition as the screenwriter of The Color Purple (1985), directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. The film starred Whoopi Goldberg in her breakthrough role, alongside Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey, and received 11 Academy Award nominations, including one for Meyjes for Best Adapted Screenplay. Goldberg won the Golden Globe for Best Actress, while Winfrey and Margaret Avery received Academy Award nominations for their supporting roles.
Meyjes also wrote The Mission for Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories (1985). Directed by Spielberg, the episode starred Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland, both early in their careers.
He continued his association with Spielberg throughout the 1980s, contributing uncredited script work to Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun (1987), starring a young Christian Bale alongside John Malkovich; the film received multiple Academy Award nominations.
Meyjes also co-wrote the story for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) with George Lucas, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, one of the highest-grossing films of the year.
That same year, one of Meyjes’s early spec scripts, The Children’s Crusade (based on his original story concept), was produced by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola as the medieval adventure film Lionheart.
Meyjes wrote The Siege (1998), directed by Edward Zwick and starring Academy Award–winning actor Denzel Washington, alongside Golden Globe– and Emmy Award–winning Bruce Willis and Academy Award nominee Annette Bening.
He made his directorial debut with Max (2002), which he also wrote. The film starred Golden Globe nominee John Cusack and Noah Taylor, and received recognition from the National Board of Review. He went on to direct Martian Child (2007), again starring Cusack, alongside Amanda Peet and Joan Cusack.
In 2008, Meyjes wrote and directed Manolete, featuring Academy Award winner Adrien Brody alongside Penélope Cruz.
His later screenwriting work includes Black Gold (released as Day of the Falcon, 2011), directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Tahar Rahim, Mark Strong, Antonio Banderas, and Freida Pinto.
In addition to his English-language films, Meyjes has written and directed several Dutch-language features, including The Dinner (Het Diner, 2013), based on Herman Koch’s internationally bestselling novel and starring Thekla Reuten and Daan Schuurmans, followed by De Reünie (2015) and De Held (2016), the latter featuring Golden Calf winner Fedja van Huêt.
Menno continues to develop new feature film projects as a writer and director.