A-List: British Directors Who Make It Big in America
By Josh Spiegel
August 12, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The movie is based on a series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, and has been brought to the screen by director Edgar Wright, the same guy behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. This is his first major film without Simon Pegg as the lead, but I’m sold on Wright’s name. Hopefully, he’ll get huge in the States and become a well-respected British director, like the names on this week’s A-List. We’re looking at British directors who got big in the States. A few notable names - Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan, and Alfred Hitchcock - are not on the list, mostly because they’re too obvious and I talk about them a lot anyway (well, the latter two). Let’s focus on directors who are big, but not household name big. Maybe Edgar Wright can get this big, and soon. He deserves it.
Paul Greengrass
Some studios will do anything to please people. It seems more than unlikely that Paul Greengrass could have ever gotten United 93 made. This film was a strict, accurate, sobering, and undramatic retelling of the events on Flight 93 from United Airlines, which was one of the planes that crashed on September 11, 2001, the difference being that the plane crashed in the middle of Pennsylvania, thanks to some quick thinking on the part of passengers who realized that terrorists were taking over the plane and chose to do something about it. The events of 9/11 will always be part of our collective souls, and aren’t easy to rehash, even in documentary-style. So why did United 93 get made, and distributed by Universal Studios? Paul Greengrass. Why keep Paul Greengrass happy? Jason Bourne. Yes, United 93 being made is probably solely thanks to the Bourne franchise.
The first film was directed by Doug Liman, but Greengrass, known for his jittery filming style, came on board for the second and third films in the trilogy, and ended up being heaped with lavish praise from critics and audiences alike. People thrilled to the you-are-there, in-your-face camerawork, the daring chases, the breathless action; Greengrass had found an outlet for his filmmaking style that wouldn’t attract small audiences, like with his 2002 drama (that you should watch), Bloody Sunday, another historical retelling of another truly haunting and violent day in history. Greengrass’s latest film, Green Zone, was a critical and commercial failure, but his name has been bandied about for a number of big projects, so don’t assume this director’s going anywhere. He can still name his price; if he could get United 93 made, he can get anything made.
Alan Parker
Alan Parker’s name is perhaps not that recognizable to you; of the five men on this list, he’s working least in show business. That said, he’s a director like Michael Apted: a fellow Brit who works steadily and solidly on a variety of films. Parker’s best known for directing films such as Evita, Mississippi Burning, and Midnight Express. There’s a musical, a historical drama, and a movie about drugs. Parker’s one of the great journeyman directors, someone who’s able to jump from genre to genre without breaking a sweat. If he’s associated with one genre of film, however, Parker would absolutely be associated with the musical, or the subversion of the musical. Evita was his last musical film, and arguably one of the more popular thanks to Madonna playing the title character.
However, he also worked on The Commitments, Bugsy Malone (a mob musical, yes), Fame, and Pink Floyd The Wall. That he was able to jump over to a film like Mississippi Burning (featuring one of the great Gene Hackman performances) shows how talented he is. His last film was the 2003 drama The Life of David Gale, which wasn’t exactly a winner with critics (I still remember Roger Ebert’s extremely vitriolic review from its release), but his career flourished for about 25 years. Parker’s career wasn’t full of major classics (I do like Evita, but the film’s no better than most other musicals), but he’s responsible for some iconic films, such as Fame. Right now, there’s no news on him working on a comeback film, but it’s always possible; for a unique take on the musical, he’s your man.
Matthew Vaughn
After the one-two punch of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch, you’d think that of Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn, it’s Ritchie who’d take the world by storm. Certainly, over the past decade, Ritchie’s become more well-known, but that’s mostly for marrying Madonna. These days, sure, he’s got the Sherlock Holmes franchise to boost his cred, but it’s Matthew Vaughn who’s become a rising star in Hollywood. In 2004, his first film as director, Layer Cake, was released. He followed it up with Stardust, an underrated fantasy starring Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Robert De Niro, but it was Kick-Ass, the superhero satire from April, that put him squarely in the sights of every geek in the country. Vaughn is now working on a new X-Men movie, X-Men: First Class. For me, this is a snooze, but it’s still a famous property and has big stars attached.
Vaughn’s sensibility is that he can do anything. Yes, his two most recent films will be superhero flicks, but he’s just as adept at fantasy and mobster sagas as he is at costumed fighters. What’s more, he’s good at working with big stars, or people who are about to become big stars. He’d clued in on the charisma and charm that oozes from Daniel Craig before Craig ever became James Bond; he’s worked with De Niro, coaxed out a good performance from Nicolas Cage, and is now working with such young talents as James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. Vaughn’s track record isn’t completely perfect (I liked Kick-Ass, but did not love it like most people my age did), but he’s a fresh, interesting, and flexible director who seems to be as at home with gross-out comedy as he is at fighting, as comfortable with romance as he is with violence. I’m excited to see what he does next.
Danny Boyle
If you’ve been reading my work on Box Office Prophets for a long time, you probably know that I am no fan of Slumdog Millionaire, the 2008 winner of the Best Picture Oscar. I found the movie to be cloying, sappy, silly, and ridiculous. Still, Boyle, who took home the Oscar for Best Director, is a talent to be reckoned with. In the late 1990s, he broke into the States with Trainspotting, a shocking look into the world of drugs in the United Kingdom. The movie catapulted him and its star, Ewan McGregor, into stardom, but it took Boyle a little longer to solidify his status as a big-time director. After Trainspotting came A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach, two indie films that tried to hit big but failed. With Slumdog Millionaire, though, Boyle’s got himself a nice bit of Hollywood cache.
His next film will be coming out at the end of this year and is assumed to be another Oscar favorite: 127 Hours, a film about the harrowing ordeal a mountain climber has to go through while trapped by a boulder. The lead role is being played by James Franco, and the buzz on the film is pretty high. Though Boyle’s overall career is hit-and-miss (my favorite film of his is Millions, a little-seen Fox Searchlight release from 2006 that was as charming as Slumdog Millionaire wasn’t), he’s a director to watch. Pairing him with a soulful actor like Franco, and a powerful true story to boot, pretty much guarantees Boyle’s name among those listed as the Best Director nominees at this year’s Oscars. The only person standing in his way, I wager, is himself.
Sam Mendes
Debuts don’t get much bigger than they did for Sam Mendes. Though I wouldn’t equate the quality of the film with that of Citizen Kane, another big debut film for its director, Orson Welles, the 1999 Best Picture winner, American Beauty, did a lot for Mendes’ career. Mendes won the Best Director Oscar, and became the hottest name in directing. Though he had an extensive background in theatre, his visual flourishes, the sharp and witty script, and excellent acting, made American Beauty a zeitgeist film, and Mendes close to a household name. His follow-up film, 2002’s Road to Perdition, is his best and, of course, most underrated. In some ways, Mendes hasn’t ever lived down American Beauty; the film doesn’t get the same love it did 11 years ago, and Mendes is best known now for divorcing Kate Winslet (also known as the stupidest thing a person can do).
Still, Sam Mendes’ name does denote an assumption of quality. His filmography is a bit spotty, going from American Beauty to Road to Perdition to Jarhead to Revolutionary Road to Away We Go, but I’ve still got plenty of hope for the man. As of right now, he’s still attached in some form to the next James Bond movie; with the financial woes MGM has been going through, who knows if he’ll still helm the film once the dust clears? If anything, I’d like Mendes to do something a little less Hollywood; it’s rare for a James Bond movie to be helmed by such a distinct auteur. Even Martin Campbell, who helmed GoldenEye and Casino Royale, doesn’t have such a unique vision in his work. Mendes’ presence might hamper the film; then again, he might prove us all wrong. Whatever the case, Mendes is still a force to be reckoned with in American film, despite always seeming a bit too much like a one-hit wonder.