Joel Silver (born July 14, 1952) is an American film producer, known for action films like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. He is owner of Silver Pictures and co-founder of Dark Castle Entertainment.
He began his career at Lawrence Gordon Productions, where he eventually became president of motion pictures for the company. He earned his first screen credit as the associate producer on The Warriors and, with Gordon, produced 48 Hrs.,Streets of Fire and Brewster's Millions. In 1985, he formed Silver Pictures and produced successful action films such as Commando (1985), the Lethal Weapon franchise, the first two films of the Die Hard series and the The Matrix franchise of action films.
He appears on-screen at the beginning of Who Framed Roger Rabbit as Raoul J. Raoul, the director of the animated short Something's Cookin. He directed "Split Personality", (1992), an episode of the HBO horror anthology, Tales from the Crypt.
He currently runs two production companies, Silver Pictures and Dark Castle Entertainment co-owned by Robert Zemeckis. Along with Jared Kass, Silver was co-creator of the sport of Ultimate.
