Danny Bilson

Bilson graduated from California State University, San Bernardino. There he met and teamed up with long-time writing partner Paul DeMeo, and together they formed Pet Fly productions.

After college, Bilson struggled to break into the movie business, working as an extra while writing screenplays. Bilson and DeMeo produced their first script, Trancers (1985), a noir tale about a time-travelling detective from the future. This cult hit spawned five sequels, to which Bilson and DeMeo contributed some writing.

Bilson debuted as a director for Zone Troopers (1985), co-written by DeMeo, a tale of American World War II soldiers who find an alien spacecraft. Danny shot Zone Troopers for $600,000 in Italy. Following this, the duo performed the same roles in The Wrong Guys (1988) a comedic spoof of boy scouting.

Bilson and DeMeo then began their comic book adaptation of The Rocketeer (1991). Writing for Disney, the partners were hired and fired several times during the five years of movie development. The two had a rough executive experience, in which scenes were deleted only to be restored years later. The film finally made it to theaters and was heralded by Entertainment Weekly as the best comic book adaptation to film. Read Less