Directors not directing

[holyzombiejesus]

Was thinking about Terry Zwigoff the other day and he's done (almost) nothing of note since Artschool Confidential back in 2006. There was a pilot for something called Budding Prospects that came out on Amazon last year but I'm still surprised at the lack of work for a relatively well respected director.

Then there's Joe Cornish. It might be a bit much to call him a director after just making the one film but I did think he'd end up doing more than a kids film in the 7 years since Attack The Block (although Wiki states he had a cameo in the last Star Wars). What has happened since he was pencilled in to direct Snow Crash? Endless meetings and rejections or just living it up in Los Angeles?

[mothman]

Wasn't Cornish tipped to do a Star War at one point? Maybe the reshoots for Rogue One put Disney off the idea of using English indie directors anymore. And then, after Solo and SW:9, using indie directors full stop.

[SteveDave]

Cornballs is (clearly) out of focus behind (I think) Carrie Fisher when they're in the bunker on the snow salt planet at the end of Last Jedi. Edgar Wright's in there too somewhere.

[greenman]

The Snowcrash talk wasn't that long ago by Hollywood standards I spose, the other alternative might perhaps be working with Edgar Wright again as a writer now the latter is coming off of success with Baby Driver.

The Coens have been quite inactive as directors by there standards recently, only Hail Ceaser in the last 5 years.

[canted_angle_again]

Mark Romanek hasn't done anything of note for a while, he seems to be happy directing random episodes of shows and video shorts for shit musicians which is a shame as One Hour Photo was fantastic.

Also Shane Carruth seems to have been dormant since Upstream Color, which was another great film. I remember reading an interview saying he's working on 'a nautical adventure movie' but that was around the time Upstream Color was released and there's been no more news since that one interview.

[holyzombiejesus]

Wasn't Cornish tipped to do a Star War at one point? Maybe the reshoots for Rogue One put Disney off the idea of using English indie directors anymore. And then, after Solo and SW:9, using indie directors full stop.

Was considered to direct The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013).
Was considered to direct Kong: Skull Island (2017).
Was considered to direct Star Trek: Beyond (2016) at one point.
Was considered to direct Gambit (2019).
Was considered to direct A Good Day to Die Hard (2013).

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0180428/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_trv_sm#trivia

[Famous Mortimer]

I would have said Christopher Smith, because, after four fucking brilliant movies (Creep, Severance, Triangle and Black Death), he went a bit quiet. But that's more me not checking IMDB for several years - he's done a kids' movie with Jim Broadbent, and in 2016 did "Detour", which looks really interesting too. If I won the lottery, he's the guy I'd give a stack of money to, to do whatever he liked (I mean, in terms of directing a film).

[Phil_A]

Also Shane Carruth seems to have been dormant since Upstream Color, which was another great film. I remember reading an interview saying he's working on 'a nautical adventure movie' but that was around the time Upstream Color was released and there's been no more news since that one interview.

Was going to mention Shane Carruth. Only two films in fourteen years.

I know he struggled for years trying to get his passion project A Topiary made before abandoning it in favour of Upstream Color. The Modern Ocean, which would've been his first major studio project, was announced in 2015 with all an all-star cast attached, but since then the project seems to've withered and died.

Since then he's done bits and pieces, some acting, some scoring, but no other film projects lined-up. Shame.

[Keebleman]

Peter Cattaneo.  One would have thought that after The Full Monty one would have had to make a firm resolution not to make another movie in order to avoid doing so, but the fact that he has made a couple of films that have gone nowhere suggests that a colossal hit is not enough to launch an actual career.

[Straight Faced Customer]

Cornish is directing this at the moment https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6811018/?ref_=m_nmfmd_dr_1

I'm still waiting for Ayoade to stop pulling this Channel 4 shit and get back on a film set.

[Custard]

George Lucas is forever working on "little, personal films", yet they never, ever come out

I'd genuinely like to know how he fills his days. Does he just lay about on a lake of money?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Jaco Van Dormael is one of my all time favourite directors despite only making four films so far - Toto the Hero (1992), The Eighth Day (1996), Mr. Nobody (2009) and The Brand New Testament (2015). A lot of the time it seems to come down to seeking financing for those films, and the odd arty project, but it does make me wonder what he does with the rest of his time.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I wanted to like attack the block, but just found it quite disappointing.

[itsfredtitmus]

I wanted to like attack the block, but just found it quite disappointing.

rank film

[SteveDave]

Scott Ryan wrote, directed and starred in The Magician https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magician_(2005_film) and then disappeared. Har.

I Googled him last week and it seems The Magician's been made into a TV series called Mr In-Between http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7472896/ that's out this year. Hoopla!

[holyzombiejesus]

Christ, Bill Forsyth hasn't done anything since that Gregory's Girl sequel in the 90s.

There's this quote on his imdb page although I'm not sure if it's linked to him not directing or writing any more.

And so the passion ultimately fizzles out because of the limitations of the goal; because movies are really not that important. At the very end of the day you're sitting with an audience of four or five hundred people and all they want is to be entertained. You see we're dealing with a medium which really only wants to involve itself in the superficial manipulation of emotions.

Oh, there's this from The Spectator too.

He hasn't made a film since, and he doesn't seem to miss it much. 'Every film is tough. There's actually very little fun in making films, as far as I can find out.' He has two grown-up children. You can sense he has a life elsewhere. It seems bizarre that a filmmaker with such perfect pitch should be so happy to walk away, but if there's a hidden reason for this riddle then Forsyth isn't telling. 'I just sit at home and I think up things to write, and then sometimes there's enough ideas to put into the shape of a film, and then I go out and find someone to make it. I'm like a shoemaker. If there's shoes to make this week, then I'll make a pair of shoes. I don't actually feel like I belong to an industry. I don't feel that I'm part of the British film industry, the global film industry. I don't really feel that way at all.'

Of course it's perplexing that Forsyth should make four wonderful films in five years and hardly anything in the next 30, but the creative peak of many careers is often extremely brief. 'I feel like a bit of a fossil,' he says, but who cares if he hasn't had a hit for a quarter of a century? He made four great movies, and that's four more than most film-makers ever make. The museum is closing. We catch the last bus back into town. We get out and say goodbye and then he disappears into the rush-hour crowd.

[idunnosomename]

George Lucas is forever working on "little, personal films", yet they never, ever come out

That makes it sounds like he's filming his genitals on a phone camera

[VelourSpirit]

Sam Raimi's not directed in a while. I forgot he'd done that Oz film though, which was only 2013. Was about to say Gregg Araki can hurry up and announce a new film but he's apparently got a new TV series coming out which sounds like classic Araki http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/starz-now-apocalypse-gregg-araki-steven-soderbergh-1202736401/

[Enrico Palazzo]

Scott Ryan wrote, directed and starred in The Magician https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magician_(2005_film) and then disappeared. Har.

I Googled him last week and it seems The Magician's been made into a TV series called Mr In-Between http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7472896/ that's out this year. Hoopla!

Interesting. Looked him up a few times over the years to see if he's been up to anything. The Magician was a cracking effort for a nae budget film.

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/after-its-creator-quit-to-drive-a-taxi-cult-film-the-magician-becomes-tv-series-20170823-gy2n3v.html

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I also forgot about Dre Oz the Great and Powerful. I was just thinking the other day that Raimi hadn't done anything since Drag Me to Hell nearly a decade ago - which was dim of me, as I was watching Ash Vs Evil Dead at the time and I'm pretty sure he directed the pilot episode.

[Sebastian Cobb]

rank film

i don't recall seeing a man banging a gong.

[canted_angle_again]

Was going to mention Shane Carruth. Only two films in fourteen years.

I know he struggled for years trying to get his passion project A Topiary made before abandoning it in favour of Upstream Color. The Modern Ocean, which would've been his first major studio project, was announced in 2015 with all an all-star cast attached, but since then the project seems to've withered and died.

Since then he's done bits and pieces, some acting, some scoring, but no other film projects lined-up. Shame.

Thanks for making me aware of A Topiary, it sounds like the greatest film never made. I've read the script twice in the past few days, it's really a bizarre thing of such imagination and intrigue. It's all I've been thinking about for the past while. I feel gutted that he couldn't get it made so I can't imagine how Carruth must feel.

[itsfredtitmus]

i don't recall seeing a man banging a gong.

ta

[Twit 2]

I know he's done TV and docs but Shane Meadows hasn't made a feature film since This is England in 2006.

[Custard]

Eh? What about Somers Town (2008) and Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee (2009)?

[bgmnts]

Has John Carpenter been up to much in the 00s-10s?

[itsfredtitmus]

dead man's shoes came after BEFORE this is england? fuck off no way did it

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Nicolas Roeg hasn't made anything since 2007, for personal reasons undisclosed to the public

[itsfredtitmus]

sorry but hes dead

[Monsieur Verdoux]

youre thinking of peter kay