Daniel Petrie Jr.

Petrie was born in Canada to Daniel Petrie Sr., a film director, and Dorothea, a producer, novelist, and actress. He attended Northfield Mount Hermon School and the University of Redlands, earning degrees in psychology and creative writing. Originally a literary agent, he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the film industry as a screenwriter. His debut screenplay, Beverly Hills Cop, was the result of numerous rewrites and several radically different iterations over the course of a decade. At one point, the film was a serious action film starring Sylvester Stallone, a project that Stallone later took with him and developed into Cobra. Despite the troubled production history, the film was a massive critical and financial success, grossing over $300 million worldwide from a $15 million budget and earning rave reviews from critics like Janet Maslin and Richard Schickel. In spite…