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Lawrence Guterman's directing career began when Dreamworks SKG partner Steven Spielberg hired him to direct the live-action portion of Dreamworks Interactive's "Goosebumps: Escape From Horrorland" video game in 1996, after seeing Guterman's University of Southern California's Master's Thesis film "Headless!" The short had won the Grand Jury Prize for best Student Film at the 1996 Worldfest Houston International Film Festival. Based on his work on the "Goosebumps" game, Guterman was hired to direct sequences for Dreamworks first computer-animated feature film featuring the voices of Woody Allen, Sharon Stone and Christopher Walken, "Antz." He subsequently spent a year in pre-production as director of the combined live-action/c.g.i. feature "Curious George" for Imagine Entertainment and Universal Pictures. When that version of the movie failed to move forward at Universal, Guterman was hired to direct the feature film "Cats and Dogs" for Warner Bros. The movie netted $200 million in worldwide theatrical box office receipts (source: BoxOffice Mojo.com). The BBC review of the film said that it "succeeds both as a parody of the spy genre, and in stretching the boundaries of what you believe is possible," and A.O. Scott of the New York Times called it "exuberant fun." He directed the poorly-received sequel "Son of the Mask" (AKA "Mask 2") with Jamie Kennedy, released in 2005. Guterman studied at M.I.T. his freshman year and transferred to Harvard University, where he received a Bachelor's degree in physics. While at Harvard he illustrated and wrote for the Harvard Lampoon. He went back to school after working in animation and received a Master's degree in Film from the University of Southern California in 1996.