Rookie 9: Jan de Bont

It was, even by Hollywood's own special-effects standards, a spectacular piece of morphing: At the wheel of Speed, first-time director Jan De Bont managed to turn a bad joke (a thriller about a bus?) into a high-octane adventuremobile, and transformed the formerly reedy Keanu Reeves into the most dynamic thing since TNT. At 50, De Bont is no cocky film-school grad. The cinematographer on such films as Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, and Lethal Weapon 3 had been in the business for nearly 20 years before hitting high speed. ''I know what to do — I've been doing it so many years,'' he says. But, he admits, ''I was a little nervous.'' That obstacle overcome — to the tune of $121 million in ticket sales — De Bont is now working on the mega-budget remake of Godzilla as well as Speed 2. ''There's always a difference once you make a huge movie,'' he says, ''Especially if it doesn't look like a freak accident.''