Biography

Joseph Zito is a well known action film director. Three of his movies--Missing in Action (1984), Invasion U.S.A. (1985) and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)--each reached the #1 box office position of top grossing film in the country in their opening weeks of U.S. theatrical release. "Missing in Action" is Chuck Norris' most successful movie and, along with "Invasion U.S.A.", set new box-office records for the action star. "Missing in Action" not only spawned a series of sequels but also turned martial arts veteran -+Norris into a legitimate movie star and household name.

Zito attended the City University of New York where, as an undergraduate, he majored in economics and went on to earn a Masters Degree in psychology. He has worked in the motion picture industry as a director, producer and writer. He even dabbled in exhibition, fulfilling a childhood fantasy: he owned a grand old movie palace, the Sanders Theatre in New York.

He also had a post-production editorial service and became well known as a film "doctor," performing emergency surgery on ailing films to turn them into healthy box office prospects. As a director, Zito started by making documentaries and then soon segued into directing feature films: Abduction (1975) and The Prowler (1981).

Zito often makes movies in exotic lands, having directed "Missing in Action" in Southeast Asia, Red Scorpion (1988) (starring Dolph Lundgren) in Africa, Delta Force One: The Lost Patrol (1999) in the Middle East and Power Play (2003) in South America. "Delta Force One: The Lost Patrol", made on a grand scale, is a hard-hitting action adventure about a team of international peacekeepers on a perilous search for a missing convoy of soldiers. "Power Play", starring Dylan Walsh and Alison Eastwood, is the story of a newspaper reporter who, while investigating the mysterious disappearance of three radical environmentalists, uncovers unorthodox scientific testing that is causing devastating earthquakes throughout Los Angeles.

Zito is a frequent lecturer at universities and colleges around the country including USC, University of Ohio at Bowling Green and UCLA. He is working in the Middle East as producer of a large-scale hospital drama television series.
- IMDb mini biography by: Ahmed Nasser (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)

He has worked with his wife, Bobbi Leigh Zito, on the films Bloodrage (1980) and The Prowler (1981).

Originally, he went to the American Film Market in the 80s, where he showed interest of wanting to direct a Doctor Strange film from a script by Bob Gale. But it eventually never got itself made.

Has cast Lawrence Tierney in three of his movies: Abduction (1975), Bloodrage (1980) and The Prowler (1981).

[Talking about The Prowler (1981)] It was extremely exciting, an absolutely wonderful time because what it did was it accessed audiences in movie theaters all over the world for very low-budget films that could be made by people without a great deal of experience. And that's a very very tough thing to accomplish today.

I had made another horror film called The Prowler which was something which I produced and directed. And it was a low budget feature. And in fact Tom Savini did the special effects and makeup on it. And I had heard about Friday the 13th first, about the possibility about doing a Friday the 13th, through someone who had seen The Prowler. And this was a guy who was apparently one of the owners of the Friday the 13th franchise. This was a theater owner in Boston, which was the owner of the Friday the 13th series at the time. Because you remember the Friday the 13th films originally were negative pick-ups for Paramount. So they were owned by someone else but Paramount ended up distributing them. And I got a call from one of the original owners saying that he had seen my film The Prowler. It was an odd call. He said he had seen my film and that it was terrific but it wasn't gonna make a lot of money. He said that if he could call that film Friday the 13th, it would make a fortune. So he said that they had just finished Friday the 13th part three. And he said that if they make another Friday the 13th, he would be calling me. And would want me to be the director. And then sometime thereafter I got a call from him saying that he wanted to do Friday the 13th part four and he would like me to direct it. And we started talking about the story because there was no story for part four at that point.