Biography

Verstappen stopped directing films in 1987 and focused on film rights, founding an organization to secure authors' copyrights.

He began studies at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in 1961, and released his first movie in 1966, De minder gelukkige terugkeer van Joszef Katus naar het land van Rembrandt.

As a boy, Wim Verstappen liked to visit the cinema, the beginning of a boundless love for film. He sees his favorite films several times, taking a camera with him to take pictures of the big screen. He sticks it in a notebook, with the dialogues learned by heart underneath it.

After the demise of Scorpio Films, Verstappen directed two films based on novels by Simon Vestdijk, Pastorale 1943 (1978) and Het verboden bacchanaal (1981). While the first was a commercial success, drawing an audience of over a million, the second film flopped, as did two later films, De Zwarte Ruiter (1983) and De Ratelrat (1987).

He was a Dutch film director and producer, television director, and screen writer.