Gil Kenan

Gil Kenan (born October 16, 1976) is a British-American filmmaker renowned for his work in animation, horror, and comedy genres, including directing the motion-capture animated feature Monster House (2006), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature, and helming the supernatural horror remake Poltergeist (2015). He has also directed live-action films such as City of Ember (2008), A Boy Called Christmas (2021), and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), the latter a sequel in the Ghostbusters franchise that he co-wrote with frequent collaborator Jason Reitman. Born in London to a Jewish family, Kenan relocated to a suburb of Tel Aviv, Israel, at age three and then to Reseda, California, at age eight, where he grew up immersed in American pop culture. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in film, during which he created his debut short film, the low-budget black-and-white The Lark (2002), shot on a home computer for $400, which caught the attention of industry executives and propelled him into feature filmmaking.

Kenan's breakthrough came with Monster House, produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis through their ImageMovers studio, blending stop-motion-inspired animation with motion-capture technology to tell a story of suburban terror from a child's perspective. Transitioning to live-action, he adapted Jeanne DuPrau's novel City of Ember into a post-apocalyptic adventure, followed by the 2015 Poltergeist remake, which updated the 1982 classic with modern visual effects while preserving its ghostly family horror elements. His partnership with Reitman, beginning in the late 2010s, has been particularly fruitful, encompassing co-writing Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), directing its sequel Frozen Empire—which explores supernatural threats in a frozen New York— and penning the screenplay for Saturday Night (2024), a real-time dramatization of the chaotic debut of Saturday Night Live that Reitman directed. Kenan's films often feature themes of childhood wonder, fear, and ensemble dynamics, earning praise for their inventive storytelling and visual flair across both animated and live-action formats.