Rob Letterman: Movies & Box Office

Robert Thomas Letterman, professionally known as Rob Letterman, is an American film director and screenwriter whose career spans animated features, live-action fantasy, family horror-comedy, and large-scale franchise adaptations. He was born on October 31, 1970, in Honolulu, Hawaii, and attended Mid-Pacific Institute before studying at the University of Southern California. Letterman began his professional trajectory with the short film Los Gringos, which he directed and which was accepted into the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. In 2002, Vicky Jenson and Eric “Bibo” Bergeron invited him into the production of DreamWorks Animation's Shark Tale, first as a screenwriter and then as a co-director. The resulting 2004 animated comedy marked his feature directorial debut and earned him a nomination at the 32nd Annie Awards. He subsequently co-directed the animated science-fiction comedy Monsters vs. Aliens in 2009, further demonstrating his ability to create humorous family entertainment populated by expressive characters and elaborate visual effects. These early projects established Letterman as a prominent figure in animated filmmaking and provided the foundation for his later transition into live-action productions.

Letterman moved into live-action filmmaking with Gulliver's Travels in 2010, directing the fantasy comedy starring Jack Black in the lead role. He followed that film with Goosebumps in 2015, a horror comedy designed for younger audiences. One of his most prominent later projects was Pokémon Detective Pikachu, a live-action and CGI adaptation of the popular Pokémon video-game franchise, which he released on May 10, 2019. The film earned approximately $433 million at the global box office and attained the then-highest percentage of positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for a film adaptation of a video game. In 2020, Netflix announced that Letterman would direct a live-action animated film adaptation of Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil, although no further updates about the project were reported. In 2026, he was announced as the director and writer of a live-action and animated Magic School Bus film starring Elizabeth Banks as Ms. Frizzle, extending his interest in recognizable children's properties. Outside his professional work, Letterman is married to Beth Pontrelli, and the couple have two children. His career, active since 1999, reflects a versatile approach that combines animation, computer-generated imagery, live-action performances, comedy, fantasy, and family-friendly storytelling.