Byron Howard
Birthdate: Dec 26, 1968
Birthplace: Misawa, Japan
Byron Howard (birthname: Byron Patrick Howard) has been a key part of Disney Animation Studios since 1994, elevating from serving as an inbetweener animator staffer to feature director (serving along the way as a story artist, character designer and supervising animator) with Bolt (2008), on which Howard was co-director with Chris Williams, and which co-starred the voices of John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Chloe Grace Moretz, Malcolm McDowell and Greg Germann, and which grossed $310 million globally.
Howard was co-director (with Nathan Greno) of Tangled (2010), loosely adapted by screenwriter Dan Fogelman from the Brothers Grimm tale “Rapunzel,” and featuring the voice cast of Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Brad Garrett, Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor, and Richard Kiel, and delivering a $592.5 million global gross for Disney Studios.
Howard was co-director (with Rich Moore), a co-story writer (with Moore and five other writers) and visual development artist of the hit original Disney animated buddy cop comedy, Zootopia (2016), co-starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Tommy Chong, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Alan Tudyk and Shakira, and grossing a knockout $1.02 billion worldwide.
Howard served as a member of Disney Animated Studios’ creative team overseeing several animated features including Moana (2016), Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Frozen II (2019) and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), before returning to the co-director chairs (with Jared Bush, with whom he was also a co-story writer with several other writers including composer Lin-Manuel Miranda) for the musical fantasy, Encanto (2021), with the voice cast of Stephanie Beatriz, Maria Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, Mauro Castillo, Jessica Darrow and Wilmer Valderrama, and which earned a mild $261.3 million global gross.
Byron again oversaw production as part of the Disney creative team for Strange World (2022) and Wish (2023), and then served as the animation director for the sequel, Moana 2 (2024), co-directed by David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller, co-written by Jared Bush, Miller and Bek Smith, co-starring Auli’I Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson and grossing a powerful $1.06 billion for Disney.
Byron then directed (with Bush) Disney Animation Studios’ long-awaited sequel, Zootopia 2 (2025), written by Bush, co-starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Quan, Fortune Feimster, Andy Samberg, David Strathairn, Idris Elba, Shakira, Patrick Warburton, and Quinta Brunson.
Personal life
Byron Howard was born in Misawa, Japan, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Issaquah, Washington, by his parents, . sister brother. Howard attended and graduated from Issaquah High School in 1986 and then graduated from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Howard is openly gay and has been married to his husband since 1988.
Known For
Byron Howard Movies
director
Previous (4)
- 2025 |
Zootopia 2
Brave rabbit cop Judy Hopps and her friend, the fox Nick Wilde, team up again to crack a new case, the most perilous and intricate of their careers.
- 2021 |
- 2016 |
- 2008 |
actor
Previous (4)
Facts About Byron Howard
Oscar Out Front: Bryan Howard is the first openly gay director to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar.
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