10 Up-and-Coming Movie Directors Who Have Franchise Potential
Who'll be next to follow Gareth Edwards, James Gunn, and Marc Webb's Sundance-to-franchise career trajectory?
Image via Complex Original
One of the biggest announcements from this year’s (not-as-big-as-usual) Comic-Con was that Legendary Pictures will make a King Kong origins flick called Skull Island. Initially, Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) was announced as its director, which would've been awesome. But shortly after that news broke, a new Skull Island director was announced: Jordan Vogt-Roberts.
Wait... who? Vogt-Roberts is best known as the director of the 2013 kids-build-a-fort-in-the-woods-because-parents-just-don’t-understand comedy The Kings of Summer, which played on 65 screens and took six weeks to make $1 million at the box office. Entrusting Vogt-Roberts (whose other credits include Funny or Die segments, stand-up bits, and four episodes of FX’s You’re the Worst) with massive action sequences and a franchise-ready origin film (that, we assume, Legendary views as just the first of many) might seem like a big gamble. But actually, it’s part of a trend.
Are you stoked for Jurassic World, the fourth entry in the Jurassic Park series that'll star Chris Pratt as a dinosaur trainer? Well, that one's been assigned to Colin Treverrow, whose only previous credit was the 2012 time-travel comedy Safety Not Guaranteed. This past summer's Godzilla, meanwhile, was directed by Gareth Edwards, who, prior to the green monster, had only directed the $500,000 sci-fi indie Monsters. But now, in addition to the Godzilla sequel, Edwards has a Star Wars spinoff on his plate.
Clearly there's a new model in Hollywood: find the biggest Sundance Film Festival breakouts and upgrade them to mega-budget universes. Do not lay track, do not pass go—just immediately become the next Spielberg. Need more examples? Sony handed its rebooted The Amazing Spider-Man franchise to (500) Days of Summer helmer Marc Webb, while Marvel consistently hires non-auteur directors to keep their universe aligned and similar in tone, the most recent example being Guardians of the Galaxy's director, James Gunn.
So who, theoretically, is next? It might seem foolish to predict such indie leaps, but hey, Skull Island doesn’t open until November 2016. We have nothing but time on our hands. Here are 10 Up-and-Coming Movie Directors Who Have Franchise Potential.
Brian Formo is a contributing writer. He tweets here.
William Eubank
What he’s made: The Signal (2014), a PG-13 blend of sci-fi and horror, featuring three college kids on a road trip who take a detour to follow a message from a hacker and end up in a strange laboratory. And then it gets really strange.
How he could appeal to studios: With its big effects sequences and massive ambition, The Signal already feels like a job application for a bigger movie. Ultimately, it's a ho-hum superhero origin story disguised as heady sci-fi, but the generic plot doesn't overshadow Eubank's visual sensibilities. Given a better script and tons more cash, Eubank could potentially do well in a Star Trek-like universe.
Gareth Evans
What he’s made: The Raid: Redemption (2012) and this year's superior, f'n insane follow-up, The Raid 2. In the former, an Indonesian S.W.A.T. team fights the Jakarta underworld in a claustrophobic apartment building; in the sequel, the lone surviving S.W.A.T. member goes undercover to bring down a criminal enterprise. And in both, the CGI-free, bare-knuckle action and fight sequences are next-level amazing.
How he could appeal to studios: Evans has probably gotten a lot offers. Critics the world over consider see him as the most exciting new action director of the moment, an heir to John Woo's old throne. There’s only one more Raid film to complete, and then Evans should have his pick of any Hollywood action franchise available.
If that’s what he wants to do. Since he's making the large-scale action pics he wants to over in Indonesia, there's a good chance Hollywood producer distractions and headaches sound as appealing to Evans as a roundhouse kick to the dome.
Jalmari Helander
What he’s made: Big Game (2014). The Finnish director of the under-seen and raucous 2010 horror-comedy Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Helander received a largely positive reception at TIFF for his Die Hard-esque follow-up. In it, Samuel L. Jackson plays the President of the (Motherfucking) United States of America, who's rescued by a young Finnish teen after Air Force One gets shot down over the kid’s rite-of-passage campsite. The boy was out to shoot a deer, and now he’s protecting the most powerful man on the planet from terrorists.
How he could appeal to studios: Re-read the above synopsis. How could he not? A black president in peril? He’s already halfway to a studio picture. Big Game has some detractors for being too dumb to be fun, but that sentiment is lost in translation within Hollywood.
Jennifer Kent
What she’s made: The Babadook (2014). “Do you want to die?” is a question from a Toadies song, and also the question a 7-year-old asks his mother in Jennifer Kent's exceptional Australian horror flick that’s been spooking film festival attendees ever since it premiered at Sundance in January. The main character, single mother Amelia (Essie Davis), at first thinks she’s got a problem child, but she quickly notices a lot of creepy shit going on and starts to think that there's indeed a boogeyman in their house.
How she could appeal to studios: It’s concerning how infrequently women directors come up in discussion for larger projects. We’re choosing Kent because she’s made a film that plays in a genre (horror) that’s been owned by men ever since a camera was ever aimed at a creaky floorboard.
And because The Babadook is spectacular, the year's best horror movie. Kent provides not just spooks from the film's titular monster but additional emotion toward him/her/it/(what?). Not to mention, a movie like The Babadook is more applicable to big-budget monster flicks than The Kings of Summer.
Charlie McDowell
What he’s made: The One I Love (2014). A married couple (Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss) are struggling. They take a retreat. After hitting their angsty couple character notes, they encounter a sci-fi twist that we won’t give away. Just know that it's really smart, and that The One I Love is one of the year's most impressive directorial debuts.
Why he could appeal to studios: In The One I Love, McDowell takes an indie convention (the rom-com) and explores it kaleidoscopically, which is also how Colin Treverrow scored the Jurassic World gig.
David Robert Mitchell
What he’s made: It Follows (2015). Following up his critically acclaimed 2010 indie teen drama The Myth of the American Sleepover, Mitchell has a potential horror juggernaut on his hands with what we've already called “an early contender for 2015’s best horror film.” It Follows involves sexually transmitted ghosts, and it's what would happen if somebody hired a young David Lynch to remake John Carpenter's Halloween.
Why he could appeal to studios: Because, like The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb, David Robert Mitchell works wonder with teenage actors. In both The Myth of American Sleepover and It Follows, he pulls naturalistic and entirely convincing performances from actors who in real life, not just fictionally on screen, legitimately younger than 30.
Whenever there's a new Spider-Man-like franchise looking to launch the next Andrew Garfield or Robert Pattinson, Mitchell's name should be at the top of every producer's list.
Marjane Satrapi
What she’s made: The Voices (2014). Satrapi, who previously wrote and directed the acclaimed 2007 animated drama Persepolis, is the latest to try to make Ryan Reynolds a serious actor. And based on our The Voices review from last month's Toronto International Film Festival, she’s the only one who’s been successful so far.
Why she could appeal to studios: Satrapi has a graphic novel background (Persepolis) and has juggled multiple film genres: animation, fairy tale romance, and psychological thriller. Again, since Hollywood seems resistant to entrusting female filmmakers with big budgets, whoever eventually breaks through is probably going to have to had stuck their toes into the fantasy realm, and having done so with an A-lister like Ryan Reynolds can't hurt.
Adam Wingard
What he’s made: The Guest (in theaters now) and last year's You’re Next. Both films are recent genre highpoints and enthusiastically match tight yet kinetic action scenes with humor, energy, and vibrant '80s synth scores. Wingard, along with his go-to screenwriter Simon Barrett), is just waiting to direct the wildest Hollywood action movie franchise imaginable.
Why he could appeal to studios: Well, studios already seem to be paying attention. During a Q&A at the Sundance Next mini-film fest in Los Angeles, Wingard asked the moderator (Nicolas Winding Refn, director of Drive) how to work with studios and keep your vision. Refn’s advice was, essentially, that you can’t. You have to be malleable and decide if you still enjoy the project after story shifts and approvals.
Although Wingard's not attached to any tent-poles just yet, he's still keeping bust. It was announced last week that he and Barrett will next tackle a remake of the brutal and badass Korean serial killer film I Saw the Devil. Wingard might not be ready to play ball, but you can tell that he and Barrett have a love for the Hollywood studio era in which directors like Paul Verhoeven and John Carpenter once thrived. They'd no doubt love to recapture that spirit with a proper budget for a change.
Justin Simien
What he’s made: Dear White People (2014). In Simien's Sundance buzz-grabber, four black Ivy League students bring a biting satirical perspective to a student riot that breaks out after a popular African American-themed party is thrown on campus. Once the film opens on October 17, get ready to un-friend Facebook pals who post status updates like, “Hey, what if we made a movie called Dear Black People?”
Why he could appeal to studios: Dear White People was the most talked-about comedy at this year's Sundance Film Festival, and Hollywood loves to toss mega-budget properties at the makers of those. There’s bound to be controversy with Dear White People, but, because the film is funny and approachable as opposed to incendiary, Simien should emerge with some interesting offers.
James Watkins
What he’s made: It took four years for Watkins to follow Eden Lake (2008) with The Woman in Black (2012), so that makes him the most tenured potential universe-builder here. Both are horror films. Eden Lake’s terror comes from realistic suspense and a pack of modern hoodie-clad hooligan boys, while The Woman in Black is a Victorian ghost tale with Daniel Radcliffe all grown-up post Harry Potter. In other words, Watkins is diverse.
Why he could appeal to studios: Eden Lake was a common couple-terrorized-in-the woods flick that Watkins made uncommon by directing the hell out of its thriller sequences, pulling zero punches, and coaxing dynamite performances from his cast (including a pre-fame Michael Fassbender). But with The Woman in Black, he exhibited his valuable ability to help Hollywood royalty like Daniel Radcliffe mature as an actor. Studio executives love that.