Bilson and DeMeo began their screenplay adaptation of the comic book The Rocketeer in 1985. While writing for Disney, the partners weathered the ups and downs of five years of movie development. The film was released in theaters in 1991, missing key deleted scenes that were only restored years later as part of the home video release. The Rocketeer has become one of the most beloved Disney live action films of the ’90s, with a recent announcement to reboot it as a film franchise as well as an animated series.

After a chance meeting with then-President of Electronic Arts in 2000, Don Mattrick, Bilson—an avid tabletop and video gamer his entire life—was brought on as a production lead to focus on guiding creative and narrative IP development at EA. During that time, he was a consulting producer for the video game The Sims (2000), as well as creative executive on the EA’s Harry Potter video game franchise, working directly with JK Rowling and acting as a liaison between the acclaimed author, EA, and Harry Potter film distributor Warner Bros. He also wrote for multiple EA game franchise, including Command & Conquer, Medal of Honor, and James Bond 007.

In 2008, THQ approached Bilson to take on the role of VP of Creative Production, formally taking on the same function there as he had done informally at EA. Executives at the company, after seeing the positive impact his input had on titles in their development pipeline, and his leadership skills when it came to interacting with developers as well marketing staff, promoted him to Executive Vice President of Global Production and Marketing.

Despite the positive early results in the Core Business Unit that Bilson managed, the company’s outsize investments in its separately led, declining Kids & Family Business Unit continued to drag on its overall financials. After successfully launching a Nintendo Wii peripheral—the uDraw Gaming Tablet—in 2010, executives at THQ made an aggressive investment in launching a uDraw peripheral for the then-new consoles Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2011. The product did not sell, resulting in a massive write-off, the shuttering of the Kids & Family division, and sole reliance on the Bilson’s Core Games business to drive the company’s revenue.

Unfortunately the $100 million shortfall created by uDraw, coupled with ongoing Kids and Family licensing expenses, put the company in dire financial straits from which it never recovered. Bilson left THQ in 2012, succeeded by Jason Rubin, who was the president of THQ before its closure due to bankruptcy on January 23, 2013.

Bilson continues to work full-time as a screenwriter and producer, while teaching part-time at USC, where he was appointed Chair of the USC’s Interactive Media and Games Division in 2017.

Bilson’s lifelong writing partner and best friend of over 40 years, Paul De Meo, died in 2018, just prior to the finalization of the sale of a script they co-wrote–Da 5 Bloods—to acclaimed writer/director/producer Spike Lee, fresh off his 2019 Academy Award win for Best Adapted Screenplay for the critically acclaimed film BlacKkKlansman. Da 5 Bloods was distributed by Netflix and the film starred Chadwick Boseman, along with Delroy Lindo and Jean Reno.

He was appointed Director of USC Games, a joint education program co-managed by USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and USC Viterbi School of Engineering, in March 2019.