Catherine Hardwicke hit one out of the park for female directors this past weekend, but she had a lot of help. Not only was she working with a pre-sold property, she also had a very manageable budget of $37 million. Quite different from the $2 million she had to work with on Thirteen a few years back. Of course, she had similar budgets on Lords of Dogtown ($25 million) and The Nativity Story ($35 million), and both were box office disappointments. Still, she’s going to keep on being trusted with more money — if Summit is smart they’ll keep her on for at least the first Twilight sequel, which will surely come with a higher price tag — and as long as she continues with genre films, she’s sure to remain a profitable director.
Not every talented filmmaker does well with more money. Danny Boyle, for instance, typically bombs with bigger budgets. And a lot of foreign auteurs strike out when handed costly studio-produced genre or franchise pics (Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection is a favorite example). But there’s the occasional filmmaker who, like Steven Soderbergh or Christopher Nolan, can make something worthwhile out of any budget they’re allotted. And then there are the many indie filmmakers who quickly find themselves at home with modestly priced broad comedies, such as the case with Seth Gordon easily transitioning from the Slamdance doc The King of Kong to the star-studded Hollywood holiday pic Four Christmases, out this week.
Who will be the next small-scale filmmaker to successfully rise up and prove him or herself worthy of bigger budgets? SpoutBlog has selected five directors we’d like to see given an economic boost, each because he or she would likely deliver something more interesting and popular than the usual Hollywood product.
James Marsh (Man on Wire; The King)
He recently gave us one of the most entertaining documentaries of all time (Man on Wire), and it’s likely that he could also give us an equally entertaining blockbuster of some kind. His best gateway would be a big deal crime caper, along the lines of Soderbergh’s Ocean’s series or even the more modestly priced The Bank Job. He pretty much already showed he could shoot a riveting heist film with his re-enactment scenes in Man on Wire. Maybe he can also hold on to the French angle by helming one of those Melville or Dassin films that are always being announced and never actually being made. Marsh’s follow-up to Man on Wire will be a relatively small British crime drama (one-third of Channel 4’s series of David Peace adaptations), but afterward he needs to be heavily wooed by the American studios.
Larry Fessenden (Wendigo; The Last Winter)
He makes some of the most interesting “horror” films around (people sometimes call them “art horror”), but they’d be even better with a little extra cash to spend on special effects. His last two films kind of lose their heat in their third acts, when the cheaply constructed monsters and ghosts appear. But had The Last Winter cost $5 million instead of $50,000, it might have grossed $33 million domestically rather than $33,000. And its not like Hollywood wouldn’t be into Fessenden’s pro-nature plots. If they can give Roland Emmerich more than a hundred million for The Day After Tomorrow, they can give a guy like Fessenden less than $10 and actually get a smarter, more entertaining genre flick.
Shane Carruth (Primer)
He gave us one of the biggest mindf*cks in the history of cinema with his 2004 Sundance-winning sci-fi film Primer, but he hasn’t really been heard from since. According to Wikipedia, he’s been planning his follow-up for the past two years and is ready to start on the financing, so here’s an idea: Hollywood should get on that. If this former engineer has spent that long working out the details of his next project, it’s likely to be smarter than most of the speedily scripted science fiction released by the studios. And it’s certainly time for an intelligent blockbuster dealing with time travel or space travel or something else in that vein. Sure, Darren Aronofsky went from math-nerd sci-fi (Pi) to a big-budget disappointment (The Fountain), but now he’s coming back strong with The Wrestler and is set to helm a RoboCop remake next. Carruth could have a similar career without the bomb in the middle if one studio hands him just a fraction of what they gave Aronofsky. Anything’s going to be an increase over Primer’s $7,000 budget.
Gregg Araki (The Doom Generation; Mysterious Skin; Smiley Face)
His most recent movie, the stoner comedy Smiley Face, should have been given the same size push as The Pineapple Express, which interestingly enough proved that indie darling David Gordon Green could be trusted with bigger budgets. Unfortunately, Araki continues to be a mere cult favorite. But he’s not necessarily a Hal Hartley or John Waters; he can break out if given the chance to. The world is just waiting for him to become the missing link between Judd Apatow and Gus Van Sant. Or is a bisexual filmmaker not the most perfect person to handle the ever-increasing-in-popularity bromantic comedies?
Helen Hunt (Then She Found Me)
This actress-turned-filmmaker could be the 21st century Nora Ephron if only Hollywood believed that women could want something a little less cheesy than Sleepless in Seattle. Too bad movies like Sex and the City and Twilight are showing us female audiences actually prefer things even cheesier. But even a slight increase on Then She Found Me’s $3.5 million budget could give Hunt the ability to deliver a thoughtful cross between romantic comedy and Hallmark melodrama that might just elevate the tastes of moviegoers, or at least attract more intelligent women to the multiplex.
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