As a teenager, De Laurentiis started her career in movies in the late 1960s working as an assistant in props and set dressing on her father's films. By 1973, she had become an assistant in costume design on Luchino Visconti's "Ludwig", but soon decided to move into film producing instead. She worked as a production assistant on another of her father's film, "Hurricane" (made in 1977, released 1979). While her initiation as producer came with the South Seas romance "Beyond the Reef" (1981), her sophomore effort, "Conan the Barbarian" (1981), brought her and her star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to international prominence. Before overseeing the sequel "Conan the Destroyer" (1985), De Laurentiis worked on David Lynch's overblown yet visually striking box-office bomb "Dune" (1984).
The producer made motion picture history in 1986 with "Tai-Pan", the first American production to be filmed in the Peoples Republic of China. Despite that cachet, the result was a confusing, badly acted, unsubtle adventure. The following year, De Laurentiis briefly joined her father's company as head of production, but struck out on her own in 1988. Her maiden effort, "Prancer" (1989), was a family Christmas story that disappeared faster than melting snow. By the 90s, however, she began to fare better, notably with the biopic of Bruce Lee, "Dragon", and other more action-oriented melodramas, including Ron Howard's profile of firefighters, "Backdraft" (1991) and "Kull the Conqueror" (1997), a mythical sword and sorcery epic starring Kevin Sorbo. De Laurentiis has occasionally worked in TV, notably co-executive producing (with Rob Cohen) four "Vanishing Son" TV-movies and a subsequent spin-off series.