John Ottman is a native of San Diego, California. His scores for The Usual Suspects and The Cable Guy gave him some recognition and, since then, he has created the scores for many major motion pictures, ranging from Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and Lake Placid to Apt Pupil. He composed and conducted the score for Urban Legends: Final Cut in 2000; this film also marked his directing debut.

Other works include writing the theme for TV's Fantasy Island, Eight Legged Freaks and most recently X2.


Graduated from USC School of Cinema-Television (1988) Longtime friend of director Bryan Singer. They have worked together on The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X2, Superman Returns and most recently Valkyrie, the movie about Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise. He was unable to work with Singer on the first X-Men movie because he was too busy with his directorial debut, Urban Legends: Final Cut.