Destin Daniel Cretton

Destin Daniel Cretton is a Japanese-American filmmaker. He is best known for his films Short Term 12 (2013), The Glass Castle (2017), Just Mercy (2019) and the Marvel Studios film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). He has also been hired to direct Marvel Studios' Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2026). Early life Cretton was born in 1978 in Haiku, Hawaii on the island of Maui. He is of half-Japanese descent. He was home-schooled by his Christian mother. His sister Joy is a costume designer who has worked on several of Destin's projects. He lived in Haiku in a two-bedroom house with his five siblings, until he was 19 years old. He moved to San Diego, California to attend Point Loma Nazarene University, where he majored in communications. After graduating, Cretton worked for two years as a staff person at a group home for at-risk teenagers. He made short films as a hobby, which developed as a vocational path. He attended and graduated from film school at San Diego State University. Career While at San Diego State University, Cretton made a 22-minute short film, Short Term 12, based on his experiences at the facility for teenagers. The short film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking. After graduating from film school, Cretton made his feature directorial debut with the 90 minute film, I Am Not a Hipster, which premiered at Sundance on January 20, 2012. The film was produced by Ron Najor, who would later go on to produce the feature adaptation of Short Term 12 alongside Maren Olson, Asher Goldstein, and Joshua Astrachan. Cretton's feature-length screenplay won one of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' five Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting in 2010.