Dwight Hubbard Little (born January 13, 1956) is anAmericanfilm andtelevision director, known for directing the filmsMarked for Death,Rapid Fire,Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home,Murder at 1600 andHalloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. He has also directed several episodes of acclaimed television series such as24,Prison Break,Dollhouse,Bones andNikita. Little was born inCleveland,Ohio. He studied film atUSC.^[1]

Dwight Little got his first break in the film business when producerSandy Howard asked him to shoot additional material forTriumphs of a Man Called Horse. Howard needed the film to be longer in order to be able to sell it overseas. When Little was finished, Howard asked him to make him an action film for the video market. Little madeKGB: The Secret War for a budget of 300,000 dollars. From that film, Little edited a show-reel that got him the attention of several members of the Hunt-Hill family from Texas who asked him to make an action film. This becameGetting Even. According to Little, the film was devised around everything the family members owned: helicopters, a ranch, aLearjet. Little was then asked byNico Mastorakis to direct the action adventure filmBloodstone in India.^[1]

Little's first chance at directing a union film wasHalloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. Little rejected the treatment that was written byJohn Carpenter andDebra Hill and pitched producerMoustapha Akkad the idea for what becameHalloween 4. On the basis ofHalloween 4,Steven Seagal asked Little to direct his next film, which wasHard to Kill. But the studio (Warner) vetoed Seagal's choice of director and went forBruce Malmuth instead. Little went on to makeThe Phantom of the Opera for producerMenahem Golan. Little got offeredHalloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, but declined. He worried he would be trapped in the horror genre. Little got a chance to do another action film when Steven Seagal asked Little to directMarked for Death. The film became a modest hit and Little got a chance to makeRapid Fire for the same studio (Fox), which was an attempt to launch the career ofBrandon Lee as an in-house action star for Fox.^[1]

While reading an article on how the Navy had a term for when they lose a nuclear missile, Little got the idea forBroken Arrow. He pitched it at Fox. The studio asked writerGraham Yost to develop the script with Little, with Little being attached to direct. But when the script was finished early and Fox wanted to head into production, Little was still editingFree Willy 2: The Adventure Home. He decided to finishFree Willy 2 at Warner. Fox askedJohn Woo to directBroken Arrow, while giving Little an executive producer's credit. Little says Woo's film bares little resemblance to what he envisioned. "I wanted to do a Tom Clancy type thriller (...). John Woo made it much lighter. John Travolta played it over the top. The movie was tongue-in-cheek and campy. But you can’t blame him, because it made a lot of money."^[1]

Because Warner was pleased with howFree Willy 2 turned out, Little got the chance to directMurder at 1600, a conspiracy thriller starringWesley Snipes andDiane Lane. The studio had promised Little that Murder at 1600 would open in January 1997, whileClint Eastwood'sAbsolute Power would open in April of the same year. A test screening was held ofMurder at 1600 in December 1996. The response was positive. According to Little, somebody for Eastwood's production companyMalpaso heard about the excellent test screening ofMurder at 1600 and told Eastwood about it. Little: "I’m not sure Clint was even aware of our movie, but he (...) went toBob Daly andTerry Semel, who were the chiefs at Warner Brothers, and demanded that Absolute Power be released first. He’s a smart guy. He doesn’t want to be second with another White House thriller. So we get a call that our movie was pushed back to April. It was so disappointing. Every review said: Just like last month’sAbsolute Power… We looked like the copycat."^[1]

After directing mostly television for almost twenty years, Little returned to feature film making with the true crime dramaLast Rampage, based on the non-fiction bookLast Rampage: The Escape of Gary Tison byUniversity of ArizonaPolitical Science Professor James W. Clarke. The film deals with events that happened in 1978, when convicted murdererGary Tison, played byRobert Patrick, escaped from prison with the help of his three sons.Heather Graham stars as his wife andBruce Davison as the lawman who heads the manhunt. Little got the book from his stepson, actorJason James Richter.Last Rampage was reviewed favorably byVariety, who praised "the no-frills efficiency" and "the brisk and suspenseful narrative".^[2]Rex Reed of The Observer called the film "grim and hopelessly despondent, but superbly acted and strangely effective."^[3] Little himself called it "the most honest" of his films.^[1]

TV movies

• Papa's Angels (2000)
• Boss of Bosses (2001)
• Home by Spring (2018)

TV series

• Ground Zero: Texas (1993)

• Dwight H. Little atIMDb

• 1956 births
• American television directors
• Artists from Cleveland
• Film directors from Ohio
• American horror film directors
• American action film directors
• Living people

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles with hCards