Steven Lisberger

Who is Steven Lisberger?

Steven M. Lisberger is an American film director, producer and writer famous for directing Tron in 1982.

Lisberger was born in 1951 in New York City and grew up in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. He is a 1974 graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Lisberger also attended The Hill School in Pottstown.

While attending the museum school, he and five associates formed Lisberger Studios. Their first project of note was Cosmic Cartoon which earned a Student Academy Award nomination in 1973. It was also featured in the Fantastic Animation Festival in 1977. Lisberger directed the production, from 1974–77, of commercials, title sequences and feature segments for such shows as the ABC-TV children's series Make a Wish.

In 1978, after moving to Venice, California, Lisberger and his business partner Donald Kushner conceived and produced a 90-minute animated film, Animalympics, for NBC-TV's aborted coverage of the 1980 Olympics. They then turned their creative efforts to the development of Tron at Disney. It was released in 1982.

His film Hot Pursuit is one of Ben Stiller's first speaking roles.

He was hired as director for Slipstream, but the film did not do well. He tried for years to get a sequel to Tron developed. This effort led to Disney greenlighting Tron Legacy, for which Lisberger served as producer.