Biography

Timothy Peternel has been an independent film producer for over twenty years. He has developed and produced both live action and CGI animated films, which have gone on to win numerous awards and critical acclaim at festivals around the world.

Peternel began his career working at Muse Productions in 1997 where he was Vice President of Development for the highly prolific indie film company. During his tenure, he oversaw for Muse the development and production of a number of classic independent features such as Mary Harron's American Psycho, Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66, and Sophia Coppola's stunning directorial debut Virgin Suicides. While at Muse, Peternel also produced music video director Jonas Akerlund's first feature film Spun, which stars Jason Schwartzman, Brittney Murphy, Mickey Rourke and Mena Suvari.

In 2003, Peternel started Deviant Films, a cutting-edge independent production company. Under his new banner, he produced many films for Sony Pictures such as Dead Birds staring Michael Shannon, Dirty, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and London, starring Chris Evans Jason Statham, and Jessica Biel. During this period, he also produced Rob Schneider's directorial debut, Big Stan, for HBO Films. In 2015 Peternel Executive Produced Paul Schrader's comeback film Dog Eat Dog staring Nick Cage and Willem Dafoe. The film premiered closing night in the Directors Fortnight at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and was listed as one of the best films of 2016 by The New Yorker.

On the animated side, in 2006 Peternel co-wrote and produced the indie CGI animated film Shark Bait (The Reef) staring Evan Rachel Wood, John Rhys-Davies, Fran Drescher, and Freddie Prinze Jr. The film was distributed by the Weinstein Company and went on to be an indie hit grossing over $30 million on DVD in the U.S., and spawning two sequels. Peternel followed up writing another animated film Outback, which was distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, and stars Tim Curry, Rob Schneider, and Norm MacDonald. Peternel also set up at New Line Cinema Ruben Bolling's cult comic strip Harvey Richards, with the screenplay written by Ethan Cohen (Tropic Thunder, Family Guy) and Glenn Berger & Jon Aibel (Kung Fu Panda, Monsters vs. Aliens).

In 2015, Peternel started a new production company Under The L Films, Inc. He is currently in his first production with AMU on the CG animated film Marmaduke based on the comic strip by Brad Anderson. He is also in preproduction on Wiley Miller's CG animated family film Ordinary Basil, which is based on characters from his award winning comic strip Non Sequitur. Peternel is also producing animated shorts of their hit comic Sarah Scribbles to distribute on digital platforms and their own site, Go Comics.

When not producing films, Peternel is a professor at DePaul University in Chicago where he teaches film production and screen writing classes.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Calvin Hobbes