the directors who made jake long the american dragon
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Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist (1973)) and worked on making his own short films. At the age of 21, del Toro executive produced his first feature, Dona Herlinda and Her Son (1985). Del Toro spent almost 10 years as a makeup supervisor, and formed his own company, Necropia in the early 1980s. He also produced and directed Mexican television programs at this time, and taught film.
Del Toro got his first big break when Cronos (1992) won nine Ariel Awards (the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars), then went on to win the International Critics Week Prize at Cannes. Following this success, del Toro made his first Hollywood film, Mimic (1997), starring Mira Sorvino.
Del Toro had some unfortunate experiences working with a demanding Hollywood studio on Mimic (1997), and returned to Mexico to form his own production company, The Tequila Gang.
Next for del Toro, was The Devil's Backbone (2001), a Spanish Civil War ghost story. The film was hailed by critics and audiences alike, and del Toro decided to give Hollywood another try. In 2002, he directed the Wesley Snipes vampire sequel, Blade II (2002).
On a roll, Del Toro followed up Blade II (2002) with another successful comic-book inspired film, Hellboy (2004), starring one of Del Toro's favorite actors, Ron Perlman.
Del Toro is divorced, has a daughter and a son and lives in Los Angeles and Toronto.- Producer
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Born in Pennsylvania and raised in Ohio, Chris Columbus was first inspired to make movies after seeing "The Godfather" at age 15. After enrolling at NYU film school, he sold his first screenplay (never produced) while a sophomore there. After graduation Columbus tried to sell his fourth script, "Gremlins", with no success, until Steven Spielberg optioned it; Columbus moved to Los Angeles for a year during rewrites on the project in Spielberg's bungalow at Universal. After writing two more scripts for Spielberg, "The Goonies" and "Young Sherlock Holmes", Columbus' own directing career was launched a few years later with "Adventures in Babysitting". He is best known to audiences as the director of the runaway hit "Home Alone", written and produced by John Hughes its sequel "Home Alone 2", and most recently "Mrs. Doubtfire".- Director
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David Yates was born on 8 October 1963 in St. Helens, Merseyside, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), The Legend of Tarzan (2016) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011).- Director
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Indian director Tarsem Singh is the son of an aircraft engineer. He was educated at Bishop Cotton Boy's School in Shimla and relocated to the USA to study business at Harvard and, significantly, film studies at the Art Center College of Design in California. Upon graduating he embarked on a career as a director of music videos, working with such artists as Suzanne Vega, En Vogue, Vanessa Paradis and, most notably, R.E.M.. Tarsem's video for their song 'Losing My Religion' went on to win six MTV Video Music Awards, including the coveted 'Video of the Year'. He's made several music videos influenced by the work of the genius Sergei Parajanov and his masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates (1969), most notably Lady Gaga's song 911.
As well as music videos, Tarsem has directed some high profile television commercials, including the Pepsi "We Will Rock You" campaign, featuring Britney Spears, Pink and Beyoncé. He went on to make his feature film directorial debut with the visually striking The Cell (2000). His other films include The Fall (2006), Immortals (2011) and Mirror Mirror (2012).- Producer
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Writer, Director and Producer Rupert Wyatt was born and raised in the South of England.
He is the founding member of the film collective Picture Farm that along with its prolific Commercial output has produced numerous Documentaries and Feature Films including the multi-award winning DARK DAYS (2001), and FISHING WITHOUT NETS (2014) both audience award winners of the Sundance Film Festival. His directorial debut was THE ESCAPIST (2008) starring Brian Cox, Damian Lewis, Dominic Cooper and Joseph Fiennes, which premiered at the Sundance film festival and was nominated for eight international awards.
As a screenwriter he has worked in France for producers Claudie Ossard (AMELIE) and Jean-Pierre Ramsay (TOTAL ECLIPSE), the UK, and the U.S where has written screenplays for 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros, Universal Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment.
His 2nd film as director was 20th Century Fox's RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011) starring Andy Serkis. Since it's release, the film has seen enormous success worldwide, both critically and commercially, spawning one sequel and a second soon to be released.
In 2013 he directed the Pilot episode of AMC's TURN which is soon to begin production on its 4th Season. 2014 saw the release of Paramount Pictures' THE GAMBLER, his 3rd film as director, and starring Mark Wahlberg, Brie Larson, John Goodman, and Jessica Lange.
As of 2016, he lives between Los Angeles and Hudson, New York with his wife Erica Beeney; a film maker, and their three children.- Director
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Born in 1954 in Pingtung, Taiwan, Ang Lee has become one of today's greatest contemporary filmmakers. Ang graduated from the National Taiwan College of Arts in 1975 and then came to the U.S. to receive a B.F.A. Degree in Theatre/Theater Direction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Masters Degree in Film Production at New York University. At NYU, he served as Assistant Director on Spike Lee's student film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983). After Lee wrote a couple of screenplays, he eventually appeared on the film scene with Pushing Hands (1991), a dramatic-comedy reflecting on generational conflicts and cultural adaptation, centering on the metaphor of the grandfather's Tai-Chi technique of "Pushing Hands". The Wedding Banquet (1993) (aka The Wedding Banquet) was Lee's next film, an exploration of cultural and generational conflicts through a homosexual Taiwanese man who feigns a marriage in order to satisfy the traditional demands of his Taiwanese parents. It garnered Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, and won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The third movie in his trilogy of Taiwanese-Culture/Generation films, all of them featuring his patriarch figure Sihung Lung, was Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) (aka Eat Drink Man Woman), which received a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination. Lee followed this with Sense and Sensibility (1995), his first Hollywood-mainstream movie. It acquired a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and won Best Adapted Screenplay, for the film's screenwriter and lead actress, Emma Thompson. Lee was also voted the year's Best Director by the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle. Lee and frequent collaborator James Schamus next filmed The Ice Storm (1997), an adaptation of Rick Moody's novel involving 1970s New England suburbia. The movie acquired the 1997 Best Screenplay at Cannes for screenwriter James Schamus, among other accolades. The Civil War drama Ride with the Devil (1999) soon followed and received critical praise, but it was Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) (aka Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) that is considered one of his greatest works, a sprawling period film and martial-arts epic that dealt with love, loyalty and loss. It swept the Oscar nominations, eventually winning Best Foreign Language Film, as well as Best Director at the Golden Globes, and became the highest grossing foreign-language film ever released in America. Lee then filmed the comic-book adaptation, Hulk (2003) - an elegantly and skillfully made film with nice action scenes. Lee has also shot a short film - Chosen (2001) (aka Hire, The Chosen) - and most recently won the 2005 Best Director Academy Award for Brokeback Mountain (2005), a film based on a short story by Annie Proulx. In 2012 Lee directed Life of Pi which earned 11 Academy Award nominations and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Director. In 2013 Ang Lee was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.- Director
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Sir Peter Jackson made history with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, becoming the first person to direct three major feature films simultaneously. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King were nominated for and collected a slew of awards from around the globe, with The Return of the King receiving his most impressive collection of awards. This included three Academy Awards® (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture), two Golden Globes (Best Director and Best Motion Picture-Drama), three BAFTAs (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film and Viewers' Choice), a Directors Guild Award, a Producers Guild Award and a New York Film Critics Circle Award.
As a follow up to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in 2005, Jackson directed, wrote, and produced King Kong, for Universal Pictures. The film grossed over $500 million and won three Oscars®.
Jackson previously received widespread acclaim for his 1994 feature Heavenly Creatures, which received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Screenplay. Other film credits include The Frighteners, starring Michael J. Fox; the adult puppet feature Meet the Feebles; and Braindead, which won 16 international science fiction awards, including the Saturn. Jackson also co-directed the television documentary Forgotten Silver, which also hit the film festival circuit.
Jackson directed the Academy Award®-nominated The Lovely Bones, an adaptation of the acclaimed best-selling novel by Alice Sebold and produced the worldwide sci-fi hit District 9. He was a producer on Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in 2011, with two more films set to come out in the future.
His most recent films include producer of 2018's action film Mortal Engines, based on a post-apocalyptic world where cities ride on wheels and consume each other to survive. Following Mortal Engines, he produced They Shall Not Grow Old, a documentary on World War I with never-before-seen footage. BAFTA nominated the film for Best Documentary, and it won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing from the Motion Picture Sound Editors.
Jackson's next project is the music documentary The Beatles: Get Back, which he directed and produced, due to be released August, 2021.
Jackson works closely with partner Dame Fran Walsh, with whom he shares his writing and producing credits, as well as a family. Jackson has a special interest in WWI memorabilia and is the proud owner of several aircraft from that era.- Director
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Francis Lawrence is an American filmmaker. He started directing over sixty music videos before he directed the cult classic Keanu Reeves film Constantine, I Am Legend and Water for Elephants. He also directed The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2, and Red Sparrow, which all starred Jennifer Lawrence.- Director
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Born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1957. In his teens he left high school and worked as a cooker in a boat.
Then he studied painting and graphism in the Academy of arts in Hamburg where he also started experimenting with video and photography. Those experimental movies attracted the attention of some producers of the German TV.
Hirschbiegel became popular thanks to his tv movies (especially dramas and thrillers). In 2001 he shot his first movie for cinema: "Das Experiment" that won several awards in many festivals all around the world. That movie is an intense investigation of the aggressive behaviour in a simulated prison environment.
His second movie, "Mein letzter Film", released in 2002, is a 90 minutes' monologue about a woman in her fifties who wants to re-start his life.
In 2004 "Downfall" was released, his third movie, and till now his greatest success. "Downfall" is about the last 12 days of life of Adolf Hitler narrated out of the sight of her young secretary, Traudl Junge. That movie has stirred up much controversy because it portrays Hitler and the Nazis as human beings and not just as evil.
Hirschbiegel has demonstrated in all his movies to be an specialist of dramas set in claustrophobic environments.- Actor
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Kenneth Charles Branagh was born on December 10, 1960, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to parents William Branagh, a plumber and carpenter, and Frances (Harper), both born in 1930. He has two siblings, William Branagh, Jr. (born 1955) and Joyce Branagh (born 1970). When he was nine, his family escaped The Troubles by moving to Reading, Berkshire, England. At 23, Branagh joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he took on starring roles in "Henry V" and "Romeo and Juliet". He soon found the RSC too large and impersonal and formed his own, the Renaissance Theatre Company, which now counts Prince Charles as one of its royal patrons. At 29, he directed Henry V (1989), where he also co-starred with his then-wife, Emma Thompson. The film brought him Best Actor and Best Director Oscar nominations. In 1993, he brought Shakespeare to mainstream audiences again with his hit adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), which featured an all-star cast that included, among others, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton and Keanu Reeves. At 30, he published his autobiography and, at 34, he directed and starred as "Victor Frankenstein" in the big-budget adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein (1994), with Robert De Niro as the monster himself. In 1996, Branagh wrote, directed and starred in a lavish adaptation of Hamlet (1996). His superb film acting work also includes a wide range of roles such as in Celebrity (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Valkyrie (2008) and his stunning portrayal of Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn (2011), where once again he offered a great performance that was also nominated for an Academy Award.- Director
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A controversial film maker, Wolfgang Petersen has at once been lauded for his professionalism and attention to detail and decried for turning out a string of standard commercial Hollywood blockbusters. The son of a naval officer, Petersen held a lifelong fascination with the sea and naval subjects. He was born in Emden and attended drama school in Hamburg. Having already made some 8 mm films while at school, he proceeded to direct as well as act at the Junges Theater in Hamburg (later renamed the Ernst-Deutsch-Theater). In 1966, he joined the newly formed Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) where he made several short films while simultaneously directing plays in Hamburg. Having caught the eye of German television networks, Petersen went on to direct a string of TV movies which often dealt with such contentious issues as environmental pollution and underage sex. An early success and also his first cinematic release was the taut psychological thriller One or the Other (1974), which starred Jürgen Prochnow and Elke Sommer. This led to more regular assignments on the ever-popular detective series Tatort (1970) for which Petersen directed six episodes.
In 1980, Petersen was commissioned by Bavaria Studios to direct Das Boot (1981), based on a 1971 novel by Lothar G. Buchheim. Filmed on a budget of 32 million DM, it became the most realistic and harrowing portrayal of life aboard a submarine in wartime filmed to date, the action of 'Das Boot' being set during the battle of the North Atlantic and culminating in an abortive attempt to cross the British-controlled strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. The film concluded with a bitterly ironic climax. 'Das Boot' (re-released as a miniseries in 1985) starred Petersen's long-standing collaborator Jürgen Prochnow (who became an international star as a result) and was nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Director and Best Writing). In its wake, Petersen directed and co-wrote a children's fantasy --again filmed at the Bavaria facilities near Munich-- The NeverEnding Story (1984). Though successful at the box-office (especially in Germany), it did not attract universal critical appeal. By contrast, his second English-language film, the science fiction drama Enemy Mine (1985) was only a modest financial success but rated better in reviews over the years, the Los Angeles Times describing it as "surprisingly coherent, surprisingly enjoyable".
In 1987, Petersen moved to Santa Monica, California. For a while, he was part of an A-list of directors tasked with helming mega-budget blockbusters starring big name actors like Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Most were palpable box-office hits, especially In the Line of Fire (1993) (often cited as his best Hollywood enterprise), Air Force One (1997) and the historical epic Troy (2004), which grossed $497.4 million worldwide. Reviewer reception for Troy tended to be lukewarm to cool, even more so with the disaster movies Outbreak (1995) and The Perfect Storm (2000), the latter criticized as suffering from "a lack of any actual drama or characterization". Attracting even lower critical esteem was Petersen's remake of Irwin Allen 's original 1972 disaster movie, Poseidon (2006). It ended up both a box office and a critical flop in the U.S. with only the superior CGI special effects gaining plaudits. Poseidon was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake. Following this debacle, Petersen withdrew from Hollywood and had a decade-long hiatus before directing his final picture, the German heist drama Vier gegen die Bank (2016).
Petersen's second wife was the assistant director and script supervisor Maria-Antoinette Borgel with whom he had a son. Petersen died from pancreatic cancer on August 12 2022 in Brentwood, California.- Producer
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Christopher John Weitz is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter who is known for Antz, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, American Pie, About a Boy, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps and The Golden Compass. He is married to Mercedes Martinez since 2006 and has three children.- Producer
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Jonathan Liebesman was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on September 15, 1976. He would remain in his home country, studying filmmaking at the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance, until 1996; that year, he traveled to New York City to visit his cousin who was attending New York University. Soon after the visit, Jonathan enrolled at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
For his student first film, Jonathan turned Roald Dahl's short story Genesis and Catastrophe (2000) into a 8-minute, award-winning short that help him land Hollywood representation; accolades included the 2000 Hollywood Film Festival's Young Filmmaker Award and the Austin Film Festival's Student Short Film Award.
Jonathan would make his feature-film debut in 2002 with Darkness Falls (2003), a dark twist on the Tooth Fairy tale that opened at #1 at the box office despite being critically panned. It also served as the big-screen debut for Emma Caulfield Ford, long a fan-favorite as Anya Jenkins on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).
Rings (2005), his short film that connected The Ring (2002) and its sequel, was first released as a bonus disc with the re-release of The Ring on DVD. The short caught the attention of Michael Bay and his production company, Platinum Dunes, and soon Jonathan was installed as the director of the company's project The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), a prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), the widely successful remake of the original.
Initially announced as the director of the Friday the 13th reboot, Jonathan's next feature would instead be The Killing Room (2009) with Peter Stormare, Chloë Sevigny, Clea DuVall, Timothy Hutton, Nick Cannon and Shea Whigham. The psychological thriller played the festival circuit before being released on DVD in the United States.
A few months before The Killing Room's Sundance world premiere in January 2009, Jonathan was announced as the director of Battle Los Angeles (2011), an alien-invasion film starring Aaron Eckhart and released by Columbia Pictures. The sci-fi/action film was a worldwide hit and put Jonathan in the running for a handful of big-studio pictures.
Before Battle LA's release, he had handed the job of directing [error] as Warner Bros., though that project remains in development at this time. Instead, Jonathan took the reins for Wrath of the Titans (2012), the sequel to successful but maligned Clash of the Titans (2010).
Currently, Jonathan is in development on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) at Paramount and an Untitled Julius Caesar Project with Warner Bros.- Producer
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Highly inventive U.S. film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly humorous, low-budget horror film, The Evil Dead (1981). From his childhood, Raimi was a fan of the cinema and, before he was ten-years-old, he was out making movies with an 8mm camera. He was a devoted fan of The Three Stooges, so much of Raimi's film work in his teens, with good friends Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert, was slapstick comedy based around what they had observed from "Stooges" movies.
Among the three of them, they wrote, directed, produced and edited a short horror movie titled Within the Woods (1978), which was then shown to prospective investors to raise the money necessary to film The Evil Dead (1981). It met with lukewarm interest in the U.S. with local distributors, so Raimi took the film to Europe, where it was much more warmly received. After it started gaining positive reviews and, more importantly, ticket sales upon its release in Europe, U.S. distributors showed renewed interest, and "Evil Dead" was eventually released stateside to strong box office returns. His next directorial effort was Crimewave (1985), a quirky, cartoon-like effort that failed to catch fire with audiences. However, he bounced back with Evil Dead II (1987), a racier and more humorous remake/sequel to the original "Dead" that did even better at the box office. Raimi was then given his biggest budget to date to shoot Darkman (1990), a comic book-style fantasy about a scarred avenger. The film did moderate business, but Raimi's strong visual style was evident throughout the film via inventive and startling camera work that caught the attention of numerous critics.
The third chapter in the Evil Dead story beckoned, and Raimi once again directed buddy Campbell as the gritty hero "Ash", in the Gothic horror Army of Darkness (1992). Raimi surprised fans when he took a turn away from the fantasy genre and directed Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone in the sexy western, The Quick and the Dead (1995); four years later, he took the directorial reins on A Simple Plan (1998), a crime thriller about stolen money, starring Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda. In early 1999, he directed the baseball film, For Love of the Game (1999), and, in 2000, returned to the fantasy genre with a top-flight cast in The Gift (2000). In 2002, Raimi was given a real opportunity to demonstrate his dynamic visual style with the big-budget film adaptation of the Stan Lee comic book superhero, Spider-Man (2002), and fans were not disappointed. The movie was strong in both script and effects, and was a runaway success at the box office. Of course, Raimi returned for the sequel, Spider-Man 2 (2004), which surpassed the original in box-office takings.- Director
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Thor Freudenthal was born on 20 October 1972 in West Berlin, West Germany. He is a director and producer, known for Motel (2005), Starman (2016) and Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010).- Writer
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Guy Ritchie was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK on September 10, 1968. After watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) as a child, Guy realized that what he wanted to do was make films. He never attended film school, saying that the work of film school graduates was boring and unwatchable. At 15 years old, he dropped out of school and in 1995, got a job as a runner, ultimately starting his film career. He quickly progressed and was directing music promos for bands and commercials by 1995.
The profits that he made from directing these promos was invested into writing and making the film The Hard Case (1995), a 20-minute short film that is also the prequel to his debut feature Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Sting's wife, Trudie Styler, saw The Hard Case (1995) and invested in the feature film. Once completed, 10 British distributors turned the film down before it eventually was released in the UK in 1998 and in the US in 1999; the film put Ritchie on the map as one of the hottest rising filmmakers of the time, and launched the careers of actors Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, and Vinnie Jones, among others.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) was followed by Snatch (2000), this time with a bigger budget and a few more familiar faces such as Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina, Benicio Del Toro alongside returning actors Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and Jason Flemyng. At the end of 2000, Ritchie married the pop superstar Madonna in Scotland, and proceeded to work with his famous wife on a variety of film and video projects, including the short Star (2001), made for BMW and co-starring Clive Owen, and the controversial video "What It Feels Like for a Girl," which was called out for its violence. In 2002, the couple embarked on a remake of the 1974 Lina Wertmüller film Swept Away (2002); the new film was a critical and commercial flop, winning five Razzie Awards. Ritchie followed up with the Vegas heist film Revolver (2005), which was panned, but won favor with the crime thriller RocknRolla (2008), which featured a game, energetic cast and brought American attention to rising stars Gerard Butler and Tom Hardy.
The next year saw the release of Sherlock Holmes (2009), starring Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and Jude Law as his cohort Dr. Watson. The film received mostly good reviews but, more important for Ritchie's career, was a solid blockbuster hit that grossed more than $520 million dollars worldwide and spawned a sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). Ritchie is tentatively scheduled to direct an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
Ritchie has two sons with Madonna: Rocco, born in 2000, and an adopted son, David, born in 2005. In late 2008, the couple confirmed reports that they were splitting up, and agreed to a divorce settlement that was finalized in December of that year. In September 2011, Ritchie's girlfriend, model Jacqui Ainsley, gave birth to a son, Rafael, and in July 2012 the couple announced they were expecting their second child.- Producer
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Alfonso Cuarón Orozco was born on November 28th 1961 in Mexico City, Mexico. From an early age, he yearned to be either a film director or an astronaut. However, he did not want to enter the army, so he settled for directing. He didn't receive his first camera until his twelfth birthday, and then immediately started to film everything he saw, showing it afterwards to everyone. In his teen years, films were his hobby. Sometimes he said to his mother he would go to a friend's home, when in fact he would go to the cinema. His ambition was to know every theatre in the city. Near his house there were two studios, Studios Churubusco and Studios 212. After finishing school, Cuarón decided to study cinema right away. He tried to study at C.C.C. (Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica) but wasn't accepted because at that time they weren't accepting students under twenty-four years old. His mother didn't support that idea of cinema, so he studied philosophy in the morning and in the afternoon he went to the C.U.E.C. (Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos). During that time he met many people who would later become his collaborators and friends. One of them was Luis Estrada. Cuaron also became good friends with Carlos Marcovich and Emmanuel Lubezki. Luis Estrada directed a short called "Vengance is Mine", on which Alfonso and Emmanuel collaborated. The film was in English, a fact which bothered many teachers of the C.U.E.C. such as Marcela Fernández Violante. The disagreement caused such arguments that in 1985, Alfonso was expelled from the university.
During his time studying at C.U.E.C. he met Mariana Elizondo, and with her he had his first son, Jonás Cuarón. After Alfonso was expelled, he thought he could never be a director and so went on to work in a Museum so he could sustain his family. One day, José Luis García Agraz and Fernando CáMara went to the museum and made an offer to Cuarón. They asked him to work as cable person in "La víspera (1982)", a job which was to prove to be his salvation. After that he was assistant director in Garcia Agraz's "Nocaut (1984)", as well as numerous other films.
He was also second unit director in "Gaby: A True Story (1987)", and co-wrote and directed some episodes in the series "A Hora Marcada (1967)". One New Year's Eve, he decided he would not continue to be an assistant director, and with his brother Carlos started writing what would be his first feature film: "Love in the Time of Hysteria (1991)" (Love in the time of Hysteria). After the screenplay was written, the problem became how to get financial backing for the movie. I.M.C.I.N.E. (Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia), which supports movies financially, had already decided which projects it would support that year, much to Alfonso's initial chagrin. However, the director of one of those already-chosen projects was unable to direct it, so his project was canceled, and "Sólo con tu pareja" took its place. Despite this being chosen, there was a lot of tension between Alfonso and the I.M.C.I.N.E. executives. Nevertheless, after the movie was finished, it was a huge success. In Toronto festival the films won many awards, and Alfonso started to be noticed by Hollywood producers. Sydney Pollack was the first one to invite him to shoot in Hollywood. He proposed a feature film to be directed by Alfonso, but the project didn't work and was canceled. Alfonso moved to Los Angeles without anything concrete, and stayed with some friends, as he had no money. Soon after that, Pollack called him again to direct an episode called "Murder, Obliquely (1993)" of the series "Fallen Angels (1993)", that was the first job he had in U.S., and also the first time he worked with Alan Rickman.
After a while, and no real directing jobs, Alfonso wanted to direct something as he needed money. He finally signed a contract with Warner Brothers to direct the film Addicted to Love (1995). However, one night, he read the screenplay for another film, A Little Princess (1995) and fell in love with it. He talked to Warner Brothers and after some meetings he gave up directing "Addicted to Love" in order to do "A Little Princess". Even thought it wasn't a great box office success, the film received two nominations for the Oscars, and won many other awards. After "A Little Princess" Alfonso developed a project with Richard Gere starring. The project was canceled, but Cuarón got an offer from Twentieth Century Fox to direct the modern adaptation of the Charles Dickens' classic Great Expectations (1998). He initially didn't want to direct it but the studio insisted, and in the end he accepted it. The experience was very painful and difficult for him mainly because there was never a definitive screenplay.
He then reunited with producer Jorge Vergara and founded both Anhelo Productions and Moonson Productions. Anhelo's first picture was also Alfonso's next film, the erotic road movie "And Your Mother Too (2001)", which was a huge success. During the promotion of the film in Venice, Alfonso met the cinema critic Annalisa Bugliani. They started dating and married that same year. "Children of Men (2006)" was to be Alfonso's next film, a futuristic, dystopian story. During the pre-production of the film, Warner Brothers invited Alfonso to direct the third Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)", an offer which he accepted after some consideration. The film would prove to be the greatest box office success of his career.
In 2003, he had a daughter named Bu Cuaron, and in February 2005 another son, called Olmo Teodoro Cuarón. Alfonso Cuarón signed a three-year first-look deal with Warner Brothers, which allowed his films to be distributed world-wide. He directed one five-minute segment of the anthology film Paris, I Love You (2006) with Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier. His next project, the futuristic film Children of Men (2006) with Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2006 having been nominated for three Academy Awards. After his youngest son was diagnosed with autism and the divorce from Annalisa Bugliani he took a break from directing and settled in London where he plans to work on his next projects.
In 2013, Alfonso directed the space thriller Gravity (2013), which would go win 7 academy awards.
Alfonso is the only filmmaker to have ever won twice for a clean sweep for the awards, for "Gravity" and "Roma", for Best Director at the Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.- Writer
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Andrew Stanton has been a major creative force at Pixar Animation Studios since 1990, when he became the second animator and ninth employee to join the company's elite group of computer animation pioneers. As Vice President, Creative he currently oversees all shorts and feature projects at the studio. Stanton wrote and directed the Academy Award®-winning Disney and Pixar feature film "WALL.E," for which he also received a Best Original Screenplay Oscar®-nomination. In 2016 Stanton directed Disney and Pixar's "Finding Dory," which, upon release, became the highest-grossing domestic animated feature of all time and in 2019 Stanton served as screenwriter and executive producer of "Toy Story 4."
Stanton made his directorial debut with the record-shattering "Finding Nemo," an original story of his that he also co-wrote. The film garnered Stanton two Academy Award® nominations (Best Original Screenplay and Best Animated Film), and "Finding Nemo" was awarded an Oscar® for Best Animated Feature Film of 2003, the first such honor Pixar Animation Studios received for a full-length feature film.
One of the four screenwriters to receive an Oscar® nomination in 1996 for his contribution to "Toy Story," Stanton went on to receive credit as a screenwriter on every subsequent Pixar film - "A Bug's Life," "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo." Additionally, he served as co-director on "A Bug's Life," and was the executive producer of "Monsters, Inc.," and "Monsters University," and Academy Award®-winning films "Ratatouille" and "Brave."
In addition to his multi-award winning animation work, Stanton made his live-action writing and directorial debut with Disney's "John Carter," released in March 2012.
A native of Rockport, Massachusetts, Stanton earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Character Animation from California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts), where he completed two student films. In the 1980s, he launched his professional career in Los Angeles animating for Bill Kroyer's Kroyer Films studio, and writing for Ralph Bakshi's production of "Mighty Mouse, The New Adventures" (1987).- Director
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Mike Newell was born on 28 March 1942 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Donnie Brasco (1997). He is married to Bernice Stegers. They have three children.- Producer
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Matthew Vaughn is an English film producer and director. He is known for producing such films as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000) and for directing the crime thriller, Layer Cake (2004), the fantasy epic, Stardust (2007), the superhero comedy, Kick-Ass (2010), and the superhero film, X-Men: First Class (2011). Vaughn was educated at Stowe School in Buckingham, England. Taking a gap year between Stowe and university, he traveled the world on a Hard Rock Cafe tour and landed in Los Angeles, U.S. Here, he began working as an assistant to a director. He returned to London, attending University College London where he studied anthropology and ancient history. But the film bug had taken hold. He dropped out of university after a few weeks and returned to Los Angeles to start his career. He quickly realized, however, that everyone in town was trying to do the same thing, so he crossed back over the Atlantic to make a name for himself in England. At 25, he produced a little-seen thriller, The Innocent Sleep (1995), starring Annabella Sciorra and Michael Gambon. Vaughn continued as a producer on close friend Guy Ritchie's film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). The film was a success in all aspects; earning Vaughn and Ritchie £9 million each. Vaughn would go on to produce Ritchie's equally acclaimed Snatch (2000) and the critically-mauled, Swept Away (2002). Vaughn made his directorial debut in 2004 with Layer Cake (2004). The film was well-received and its success led to Vaughn being tapped to direct X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) but he later dropped out only two weeks before filming began. Vaughn was, subsequently, very critical of Brett Ratner's direction of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (aka X-Men 3). Vaughn next directed Stardust (2007) and a movie adaption of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass. He was also in talks to direct an adaptation of "Thor", but left that project. In May 2010, 20th Century Fox confirmed that Vaughn will direct X-Men: First Class (2011) and announced the film will be released on June 3, 2011. Vaughn is best known for starting his career working as a producer for the Guy Ritchie films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Snatch (2000) and Swept Away (2002). Jane Goldman is one the screenwriters who Vaughn collaborated with for the films, Stardust (2007), Kick-Ass (2010) and the upcoming X-Men: First Class (2011). The actors that Vaughn usually works with in his films are Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, Jason Flemyng, Adam Fogerty, Sienna Miller, Brad Pitt (as a producer on Kick-Ass (2010)), Mark Strong, Robbie Gee, Alan Ford, Tamer Hassan and Dexter Fletcher. Vaughn's wife is German supermodel Claudia Schiffer, whom he married in Shimpling, Suffolk, in 2002. The couple have three children: son Caspar Matthew (born 30 January 2003), daughter Clementine de Vere Drummond (born 11 November 2004) and a second daughter, Cosima Violet (born 14 May 2010). They have homes in Suffolk and Notting Hill. He has hired ex-Gurkha soldiers for security for him and his wife following reports of stalkers apparently intruding their house.- Writer
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Luc Besson spent the first years of his life following his parents, scuba diving instructors, around the world. His early life was entirely aquatic. He already showed amazing creativity as a youth, writing early drafts of The Big Blue (1988) and The Fifth Element (1997), as an adolescent bored in school. He planned on becoming a marine biologist specializing in dolphins until a diving accident at age 17 which rendered him unable to dive any longer. He moved back to Paris, where he was born, and only at age 18 did he first have an urban life or television. He realized that film was a medium which he could combine all his interests in various arts together, so he began taking odd jobs on various films. He moved to America for three years, then returned to France and formed Les Films de Loups - his own production company, which later changed its name to Les Films de Dauphins. He is now able to dive again.- Director
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Neill Blomkamp is a South African-Canadian film director and screenwriter who is known for the science fiction films District 9, Elysium and Chappie. He also directed the supernatural horror film Demonic and the 2007 short film Halo: Landfall, based on the Microsoft science fiction video game franchise. He had a child from his wife Terri Tatchell.- Producer
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Stephen Sommers was born on March 20, 1962 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Raised in St. Cloud, Minnesota, he attended St. John's University and the University of Seville in Spain. Afterward, Sommers spent the next four years performing as an actor in theater groups and managing rock bands throughout Europe.
From there, he relocated to Los Angeles and attended the USC School of Cinema-Television for three years, earning a Masters Degree, where he wrote and directed an award winning short film called "Perfect Alibi". With independent funding, he wrote and directed his first motion picture Catch Me If You Can (1989) which was filmed on location in his hometown St. Cloud, Minnesota. Sommers then went on to write and direct The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993) as well as the latest version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1994) both for Walt Disney Pictures. Sommers also wrote the screenplays for the grade-B action flick Gunmen (1993) and the Disney adventure Tom and Huck (1995) which he also executive produced. He also wrote and directed the suspense-thriller Deep Rising (1998), and the latest version of The Mummy (1999). For television, Sommers wrote and executive produced Oliver Twist (1997) for director Tony Bill.
Most recently, he wrote and directed the sequel to The Mummy (1999), titled The Mummy Returns (2001), as well as the horror-thriller-action epic Van Helsing (2004), and the live-action adaptation G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009).- Producer
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Rob Cohen is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. One of the 1970's "baby moguls", he built a thriving career as a producer, before concentrating full time on directing from the 1990's, with high adrenaline action blockbusters such as xXx (2002) and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993). He is the creator of The Fast and the Furious (2001), Universal Pictures' biggest franchise of all time.
Born on March 12, 1949 in Cornwall, New York, USA. He attended Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude in the class of '71, concentrating in a cross major between anthropology and visual studies. His first endeavor in filmmaking was a commissioned recruiting film for Harvard's Admissions Office in 1970. With a career in film and television spanning more than 40 years, Cohen has distinguished himself both as a celebrated screenwriter, producer and director. In 1973, Cohen became Fox's Vice President of TV Movies, before being poached by Gordon L. Berry and becoming Head of Production at Motown Records at the age of just 24. He went on to produce and direct some of the most iconic films and television series of the 1980's, including Miami Vice (1984), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Ironweed (1987) and The Wiz (1978)_. From 1990 onward, Cohen moved into directing full time. Much success followed with early 90's hits such as Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993), DragonHeart (1996), Daylight (1996) and the Golden Globe award winning film The Rat Pack (1998). At 52, Cohen had become a hit action director of youth films, directing the 2001 blockbuster, The Fast and the Furious (2001). With the enormous success of Fast, he partnered up with Vin Diesel again the following year to direct yet another box office hit, xXx (2002). Cohen directed the third installed of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) in 2008, grossing $405million world-wide, and Blumhouse Production's The Boy Next Door (2015) with Jennifer Lopez, which went on to gross five times it's budget.
Currently on location in Sofia, Bulgaria, Cohen is shooting his next film, The Hurricane Heist (2018). Starring Toby Kebbell, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten and Ralph Ineson, the action/adventure tells the tale of a $600 million heist of a U.S. treasury facility in a small Sou then town, during the worst storm to ever hit the coastal United States. The screenplay was written by Rob Cohen, Scott Windhauser, and Jeff Dixon.
Cohen is also an accomplished commercials director, housed at Original Film, having made over 150 spots for products such as Disney's Star Wars, Verizon, Ford, GM, Mercedes, Chevy, Saab and Burger King among many others.- Producer
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Marc Webb is an American film and music video director. He directed over 100 music videos before he made his film directorial debut with 500 Days of Summer, a romantic comedy. He later directed The Amazing Spider-Man and its 2014 sequel starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. He also directed Gifted and The Only Living Boy in New York.