Lorenzo di Bonaventura (born January 13, 1957) is an American film producer and the founder and owner of Di Bonaventura Pictures. He is best known for producing the G.I. Joe and Transformers film series. The films he produced have earned over $7 billion at the box office.

Life and career

Di Bonaventura spent the 1990s as an executive in the film industry eventually rising to president of worldwide production for Warner Bros. Pictures. His production company, Di Bonaventura Pictures, is based at Paramount Pictures. His tenure at Warner Bros. included discovering and shepherding The Matrix into production, as well as purchasing the rights to the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling. In 2007, di Bonaventura purchased the film rights to the six-part series of fantasy novels The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott. Di Bonaventura said that Scott's "fantastic series is a natural evolution from Harry Potter". In the documentary Side by Side, di Bonaventura criticized the ubiquitousness of inexpensive digital cameras that allow anyone to become a filmmaker, potentially saturating the media landscape with awful entertainment that the public wouldn't be able to distinguish from quality works. His argument stated that the new media landscape is flawed due to lack of a "tastemaker".

Personal life

Di Bonaventura graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall and Harvard University, where he played soccer. He later received an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His father, Mario di Bonaventura, was a symphony conductor, and his uncle, Anthony di Bonaventura, was a concert pianist. Di Bonaventura serves as chair of the Creative Council for RepresentUs, a nonpartisan anti-corruption organization. He has served on the Claremont Graduate University Board of Trustees since 2015. , di Bonaventura lived in Brentwood, Los Angeles with his wife Kimberly and their two sons.

Filmography

Producer

Paramount Pictures

Sony Pictures Releasing

Summit Entertainment

Lionsgate Films

Warner Bros. Pictures

Others

Executive producer

Television