My Fave Creators, Writers & Producers
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Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is of mostly Irish descent.
Mel and his family moved to Australia in the late 1960s, settling in New South Wales, where Mel's paternal grandmother, contralto opera singer Eva Mylott, was born. After high school, Mel studied at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, performing at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts alongside future film thespians Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush.
After college, Mel had a few stints on stage and starred in a few TV shows. Eventually, he was chosen to star in the films Mad Max (1979) and Tim (1979), co-starring Piper Laurie. The small budgeted Mad Max made him known worldwide, while Tim garnered him an award for Best Actor from the Australian Film Institute (equivalent to the Oscar).
Later, he went on to star in Gallipoli (1981), which earned him a second award for Best Actor from the AFI. In 1980, he married Robyn Moore and had seven children. In 1984, Mel made his American debut in The Bounty (1984), which co-starred Anthony Hopkins.
Then in 1987, Mel starred in what would become his signature series, Lethal Weapon (1987), in which he played "Martin Riggs". In 1990, he took on the interesting starring role in Hamlet (1990), which garnered him some critical praise. He also made the more endearing Forever Young (1992) and the somewhat disturbing The Man Without a Face (1993). 1995 brought his most famous role as "Sir William Wallace" in Braveheart (1995), for which he won two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director.
From there, he made such box office hits as The Patriot (2000), Ransom (1996), and Payback (1999). Today, Mel remains an international superstar mogul, continuously topping the Hollywood power lists as well as the Most Beautiful and Sexiest lists.- Writer
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J. Michael Straczynski was born on 17 July 1954 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Babylon 5 (1993), Changeling (2008) and Jeremiah (2002). He was previously married to Kathryn M. Drennan.- Writer
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- Director
Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight creative relationship with her sister Lilly. After the siblings dropped out of college, they started a construction business and wrote screenplays. Their 1995 script, Assassins (1995), was made into a movie, leading to a Warner Bros contract. After that time, the Wachowskis devoted themselves to their movie careers. In 2012, during interviews for Cloud Atlas and in her acceptance speech for the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award, Lana spoke about her experience of being a transgender woman, sacrificing her much cherished anonymity out of a sense of responsibility. Lana is known to be extremely well-read, loves comic books and exploring ideas of imaginary worlds, and was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in creating Cloud Atlas.- Writer
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Director, writer, and producer Lilly Wachowski was born in 1967 in Chicago, the daughter of Lynne, a nurse and painter, and Ron, a businessman. Lilly was educated at Kellogg Elementary School in Chicago, before moving on to Whitney M. Young High School. After graduating from high school, she attended Emerson College in Boston but dropped out.
Lilly teamed up with her older sibling, Lana Wachowski, and began working on films. Their first script was optioned and formed the basis for the film Assassins (1995). The Wachowskis went on to make their directorial debut with the self-written Bound (1996), which was well-received. They followed this with the smash hit The Matrix (1999) and went on to produce two successful sequels, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003).
Other projects include scripting and producing the cult hit V for Vendetta (2005), a live-action version of a Japanese anime series; Speed Racer (2008); Cloud Atlas (2012); and the ambitious epic Jupiter Ascending (2015).- Writer
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George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar driver. However, a terrible car accident just after his high school graduation ended that dream permanently. The accident changed his views on life.
He decided to attend Modesto Junior College before enrolling in the University of Southern California film school. As a film student, he made several short films including Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967) which won first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival. In 1967, he was awarded a scholarship by Warner Brothers to observe the making of Finian's Rainbow (1968) which was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas and Coppola became good friends and formed American Zoetrope in 1969. The company's first project was Lucas' full-length version of THX 1138 (1971). In 1971, Coppola went into production for The Godfather (1972), and Lucas formed his own company, Lucasfilm Ltd.
In 1973, he wrote and directed the semiautobiographical American Graffiti (1973) which won the Golden Globe and garnered five Academy Award nominations. This gave him the clout he needed for his next daring venture. From 1973 to 1974, he began writing the screenplay which became Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). He was inspired to make this movie from Flash Gordon and the Planet of the Apes films. In 1975, he established ILM. (Industrial Light & Magic) to produce the visual effects needed for the movie. Another company called Sprocket Systems was established to edit and mix Star Wars and later becomes known as Skywalker Sound. His movie was turned down by several studios until 20th Century Fox gave him a chance. Lucas agreed to forego his directing salary in exchange for 40% of the film's box-office take and all merchandising rights. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned seven Academy Awards. It redefined the term "blockbuster" and the rest is history.
Lucas made the other Star Wars films and along with Steven Spielberg created the Indiana Jones series which made box office records of their own. From 1980 to 1985, Lucas was busy with the construction of Skywalker Ranch, built to accommodate the creative, technical, and administrative needs of Lucasfilm. Lucas also revolutionized movie theaters with the THX system which was created to maintain the highest quality standards in motion picture viewing.
He went on to produce several more movies that have introduced major innovations in filmmaking technology. He is chairman of the board of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. In 1992, George Lucas was honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his lifetime achievement.
He reentered the directing chair with the production of the highly-anticipated Star Wars prequel trilogy beginning with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) . The films have been polarizing for fans and critics alike, but were commercially successful and have become a part of culture. The animated spin-off series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) was supervised by Lucas. He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, making co-chair Kathleen Kennedy president. He has attended the premieres of new Star Wars films and been generally supportive of them.- Writer
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While in junior high school, he became interested in science fiction, and years later while reading a copy of 'Astounding Stories' when he was working as an airline pilot, he decided to give it up and become a writer. He moved West and joined the Los Angeles police force to gain experience that would help him toward a writing career in Hollywood. He began selling scripts for television shows such as 'Dragnet' and 'Naked City'. He was head writer on 'Have Gun Will Travel' for two years, winning the 'Writer's Guild Award' for 'Best Script'. He created and produced 'The Lieutenant' followed by 3 years of the 'Star Trek' television series and produced the films 'Pretty Maids All in a Row', the first 'Star Trek' film and was executive consultant on the following two.- Music Department
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John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky University and then USC film school in Los Angeles. He began making short films in 1962, and won an Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Subject in 1970, for The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), which he made while at USC. Carpenter formed a band in the mid-1970s called The Coupe de Villes, which included future directors Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle. Since the 1970s, he has had numerous roles in the film industry including writer, actor, composer, producer, and director. After directing Dark Star (1974), he has helmed both classic horror films like Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and The Thing (1982), and noted sci-fi tales like Escape from New York (1981) and Starman (1984).- Writer
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George Nolfi is an American writer-director best known for Bourne Ultimatum, Oceans Twelve, and The Adjustment Bureau. His most recent film, The Banker, starring Sam Jackson and Anthony Mackie won the 2021 NAACP Image Award for Best Independent Motion Picture.
Nolfi's first screenwriting credit was for adapting Michael Crichton's bestseller, Timeline. In 2004, he adapted his spec screenplay Honor Among Thieves into Ocean's Twelve. That same year, he rewrote the ending of Bourne Supremacy weeks before release, and in 2007 co-wrote Bourne Ultimatum. His continued work with Matt Damon lead to his directorial debut, The Adjustment Bureau, which co-starred Emily Blunt.
Nolfi was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Princeton University with plans to pursue a career in government and academia. He studied at Oxford University on a Marshall Scholarship and was beginning his PhD dissertation at UCLA in political science when his spec script, Pathfinder, sold in a bidding war and convinced him to change careers.- Writer
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Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future director Jennifer Lynch shortly after he turned 21. That experience, plus attending art school in a particularly violent and run-down area of Philadelphia, inspired Eraserhead (1977), a film that he began in the early 1970s (after a couple of shorts) and which he would work on obsessively for five years. The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable weird, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz, it secured a cult following and enabled Lynch to make his first mainstream film (in an unlikely alliance with Mel Brooks), though The Elephant Man (1980) was shot through with his unique sensibility. Its enormous critical and commercial success led to Dune (1984), a hugely expensive commercial disaster, but Lynch redeemed himself with the now classic Blue Velvet (1986), his most personal and original work since his debut. He subsequently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with the dark, violent road movie Wild at Heart (1990), and achieved a huge cult following with his surreal TV series Twin Peaks (1990), which he adapted for the big screen, though his comedy series On the Air (1992) was less successful. He also draws comic strips and has devised multimedia stage events with regular composer Angelo Badalamenti. He had a much-publicized affair with Isabella Rossellini in the late 1980s.- Producer
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Born in San Francisco and raised in Oakland, Colin Trevorrow started making short films when he was 12 years old. He studied film and dramatic writing at New York University. After graduation, he wrote and directed "Home Base" a digital short that became one of the early viral successes on the internet. His first feature film, "Safety Not Guaranteed" was written by fellow NYU graduate Derek Connolly, who met Trevorrow while they were both interns on Saturday Night Live.- 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.- Writer
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Jon Spaihts is an American screenwriter and author. He has written the films Dune starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, Doctor Strange starring Benedict Cumberbatch, The Mummy starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella, Passengers starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, Prometheus starring Michael Fassbender and The Darkest Hour. He is married to Johanna Watts.- Writer
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Roland Emmerich is a German film director and producer of blockbuster films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Godzilla (1998), Independence Day (1996) and The Patriot (2000). Before fame, he originally wanted to be a production designer, but decided to be a director, after watching the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Emmerich began his career in his native Germany. In his youth, he pursued painting and sculpting. While enrolled in the director's program at film school in Munich, his student film The Noah's Ark Principle (1984) went on to open the 1984 Berlin Film Festival. The feature became a huge success and was sold to more than 20 countries. In an amazing trivia, he directed his first feature, The Noah's Ark Principle (1984), in 1984. He is openly gay and a campaigner for the LGBT community.
A director/writer/producer with a flair for special effects-driven action, German Roland Emmerich made himself at home in blockbuster-hungry 1990s Hollywood. Born and educated in West Germany, Emmerich studied production design as well as direction at the Munich Film and Television School. After his student film, The Noah's Ark Principle, debuted at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival, Emmerich formed his production company Centropolis and directed supernatural fantasies Making Contact (1986) and Ghost Chase (1987), and the straight-to-video action film Moon 44 (1990). On the latter, he met actor Dean Devlin who subsequently switched jobs to become Emmerich's writing and producing partner once Emmerich set up shop in Hollywood.
After making his solo Hollywood debut directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cyborg action fest Universal Soldier (1992), Emmerich and Devlin revealed a talent for conjuring A-level action spectacles out of B-movie scenarios with their first film together, Stargate (1994). A space odyssey mixing ancient Egyptiana and high-tech wizardry, Stargate became an unexpected hit. Emmerich hit his blockbuster stride with his next film, Independence Day (1996). With its eye-popping destruction of major cities and climactic annihilation of a spacecraft via portable computer, Independence Day blew away its summer movie competition on the strength of its visual flash. Geared to repeat with the endlessly- and creatively-hyped version of Godzilla (1998), Emmerich instead faced the conundrum of directing a $100 million grossing film that did not live up to box office expectations. Emmerich and Devlin next turned their epic visions to the decidedly lower-tech (but still CGI-enhanced) action of the American Revolution in the Mel Gibson summer vehicle The Patriot (2000).- Additional Crew
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John West was born in 1974 in Carolina, Rhode Island, USA. He is a producer, known for James Bond Supports International Women's Day (2011), Overnight (2003) and Skyfall (2012).- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Neil Burger is an American film and television director, writer, and producer. Most recently, he wrote and directed Voyagers (2021), starring Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan, and Lily-Rose Depp. He is also known for The Upside (2017), Divergent (2014), Limitless (2011), and The Illusionist (2006). For television, Burger directed and executive produced the first two episodes of Billions for Showtime starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis. He is currently in pre-production on The Marsh King's Daughter starring Daisy Ridley.
A graduate of Yale University with a degree in fine arts, Burger resides in New York City with his family.- Director
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Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian film director and writer. He was born in 1967, in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. He started his career as a filmmaker at the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), and Incendies (2010). He is married to Tanya Lapointe.- Actor
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Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to television.
He was a writer for, Your Show of Shows (1950) Caesar's Hour (1954) and wrote the Broadway show Shinbone Alley. He also worked in the creation of The 2000 Year Old Man (1975) and Get Smart (1965) before embarking on a highly successful film career in writing, acting, producing and directing.
Brooks is famous for the spoofs of different film genres that he made such as Blazing Saddles (1974), History of the World: Part I (1981), Silent Movie (1976), Young Frankenstein (1974), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), High Anxiety (1977), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), and Spaceballs (1987).- 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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Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Apollo 13 (1995) to the hit comedies Parenthood (1989) and Splash (1983), he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films.
Howard made his directorial debut in 1978 with the comedy Grand Theft Auto (1977). He began his career in film as an actor. He first appeared in The Journey (1959) and The Music Man (1962), then as Opie on the long-running television series The Andy Griffith Show (1960). Howard later starred in the popular series Happy Days (1974) and drew favorable reviews for his performances in American Graffiti (1973) and The Shootist (1976).
Howard and long-time producing partner Brian Grazer first collaborated on the hit comedies "Night Shift" and "Splash." The pair co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 to create independently produced feature films.
Howard's portfolio includes some of the most popular films of the past 20 years. In 1991, Howard created the acclaimed drama "Backdraft", starring Robert De Niro, Kurt Russell and William Baldwin. He followed it with the historical epic Far and Away (1992), starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Howard directed Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise and Delroy Lindo in the 1996 suspense thriller Ransom (1996). Howard worked with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan on "Apollo 13," which was re-released recently in the IMAX format.
Howard's skill as a director has long been recognized. In 1995, he received his first Best Director of the Year award from the DGA for "Apollo 13." The true-life drama also garnered nine Academy Award nominations, winning Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. It also received Best Ensemble Cast and Best Supporting Actor awards from the Screen Actor's Guild. Many of Howard's past films have received nods from the Academy, including the popular hits Backdraft (1991), "Parenthood" and Cocoon (1985), the last of which took home two Oscars.
Howard directed and produced Cinderella Man (2005) starring Oscar winner Russell Crowe, with whom he previously collaborated on "A Beautiful Mind," for which Howard earned an Oscar for Best Director and which also won awards for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress. The film garnered four Golden Globes as well, including the award for Best Motion Picture Drama. Additionally, Howard won Best Director of the Year from the Directors Guild of America. Howard and producer Brian Grazer received the first annual Awareness Award from the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign for their work on the film.
Howard was honored by the Museum of Moving Images in December 2005, and by the American Cinema Editors in February 2006. Howard and his creative partner Brian Grazer, were honored by the Producers Guild of America with the Milestone Award in January 2009, NYU's Tisch School of Cinematic Arts with the Big Apple Award in November 2009 and by the Simon Wiesenthal Center with their Humanitarian Award in May 2010. In June 2010, Howard was honored by the Chicago Film Festival with their Gold Hugo - Career Achievement Award. In March 2013, Howard was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. In December 2015, Howard was honored with a star in the Motion Pictures category, making him one of the very few to have been recognized with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Howard also produced and directed the film adaptation of Peter Morgan's critically acclaimed play Frost/Nixon (2008). The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, and was also nominated for The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures by the PGA.
Howard has also served as an executive producer on a number of award-winning films and television shows, such as the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998), Fox's Emmy Award winner for Best Comedy, Arrested Development (2003), a series which he also narrated, Netflix's release of new episodes of "Arrested Development," and NBC's "Parenthood."
Howard's recent films include the critically acclaimed drama Rush (2013), staring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, written by Peter Morgan; and Made in America (2013), a music documentary he directed staring Jay-Z for Showtime.
Howard's other films include In the Heart of the Sea (2015), based on the true story that inspired Moby Dick; his adaptation of Dan Brown's best-selling novels Angels & Demons (2009), and The Da Vinci Code (2006) staring Oscar winner Tom Hanks; the blockbuster holiday favorite "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)" starring Jim Carrey; "Parenthood" starring Steve Martin; the fantasy epic Willow (1988); Night Shift (1982) starring Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton and Shelley Long; and the suspenseful western, The Missing (2003), staring Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones.
Recently, Howard directed Inferno (2016), the third installment of Dan Brown 's Robert Langdon franchise and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (2016), a documentary about the rock legends The Beatles. He also produced the second season of Breakthrough (2015), Mars (2016), and directed the first episode of Genius (2017), based on the life of Albert Einstein, all for NatGeo.- Producer
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Bryan Singer is an American film director and producer who got his start writing and co-directing the short film Lions Den with his classmates while he attended USC. He was hired by 20th Century Fox to direct X-Men, which helped kick-start the superhero renaissance. He later directed three sequels. He went to direct Superman Returns, a revival of the Superman film series starring Brandon Routh. He also directed Valkyrie, Bohemian Rhapsody and Jack the Giant Slayer.- 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.- Producer
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James Wan (born 26 February 1977) is an Australian film producer, screenwriter and film director of Malaysian Chinese descent. He is widely known for directing the horror film Saw (2004) and creating Billy the puppet. Wan has also directed Dead Silence (2007), Death Sentence (2007), Insidious (2010), The Conjuring (2013) and Furious 7 (2015).
Before his success in the mainstream film industry, he made his first feature-length film, Stygian, with Shannon Young, which won "Best Guerrilla Film" at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) in 2000.
Prior to 2003, Wan and Leigh Whannell had begun writing a script based for a horror film, citing inspiration from their dreams and fears. Upon completing the script, Leigh and James had wanted to select an excerpt from their script, later to be known as Saw (2004), and film it to pitch their film to studios. With the help of Charlie Clouser, who had composed the score for the film, and a few stand-in actors, Leigh and James shot the film with relatively no budget. Leigh had decided to star in the film as well.
After the release of the full-length Saw (2004), the film was met with overwhelming success in the box office both domestically and internationally. The film ended up grossing 55 million dollars in America, and 48 million dollars in other countries, totaling over $103 million worldwide. This was over 100 million dollars profit, over 80 times the production budget. This green-lit the sequel Saw II (2005), and later the rest of the Saw franchise based on the yearly success of the previous installment. Since its inception, Saw (2004) has become the highest grossing horror franchise of all time worldwide in unadjusted dollars. In the United States only, Saw (2004) is the second highest grossing horror franchise, behind only the Friday the 13th (1980) films by a margin of $10 million.- Producer
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John Ridley is the author of seven published novels, the most recent, What Fire Cannot Burn from Warner Books and The Drift from Knopf. His first novel, Stray Dogs, was made into the feature film U Turn (1997) directed by Oliver Stone and starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, and Nick Nolte. Additionally, Ridley wrote the screenplays for the films Undercover Brother (2002) and Cold Around the Heart (1997) and wrote the story for Three Kings (1999).
He is a playwright as well and in 2005 produced the world premiere of his first play, Ten Thousand Years. Ridley is also a commentator for National Public Radio and a regular contributor to California Connected (2002), an award-winning, news magazine which airs throughout California on 12 Public Television stations. He was the host of Movie Club with John Ridley (2004) on AMC, a unique movie review program with a panel of critics.
Ridley also wrote, directed, and produced the popular TV show, Barbershop (2005) formerly on Showtime.- Writer
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Robert Silverberg was born on 15 January 1935 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for Bicentennial Man (1999), Needle in a Timestack (2021) and How It Was When the Past Went Away. He has been married to Karen Haber since 1987. He was previously married to Barbara H. Brown.- Director
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A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be critiqued by people like Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Sontag. Later she earned a scholarship to study film at Columbia University School of Arts, graduating in 1979. She was also a member of the British avant garde cultural group, Art and Language. Kathryn is the only child of the manager of a paint factory and a librarian.