There seems to be a growing trend in Hollywood where once a foreign director attracts attention from the West they are mmediately sent packing to tinseltown where they are watered down and forced to produce generic horror movies that lack the unique spark of their previous work (there are, of course, exceptions, such as Guillermo Del Toro and Ryűhei Kitamura). Here are a few directors that had such potential, only for the Hollywood machine (and interfering producers) to dampen the effect...
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
French filmmaker Jeunet had already co-directed the dark fantasies
Delicatessen and
La Cité des enfants perdus (
The City of Lost Children) when
Twentieth Century Fox drafted him in to revamp their fleding Alien franchise, after the disappointing returns of their last entry. The resulting movie,
Alien Resurrection, had a few interesting touches but suffered at the hands of a nervous studio. Jeunet returned to France and reinvented his career with the excellent fairytale
Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (
Amélie).
Oliver Hirschbiegel
Hirschbiegel had become hot property in his native Germany after two excellent films - the tense
Das Experiment and the Hitler biopic
Der Untergang (
Downfall) - and soon Hollywood came calling. The project he was offered was
The Invasion, yet another remake of the '50's b-movie classic
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which had already been redone twice), starring Nicole Kidman and James Bond star Daniel Craig. The movie flopped and was quickly banished to video.
George Sluizer
In 1988 French director Sluizer released a tense and claustrophobic thriller
Spoorloos, and was drafted a few years later to helm the ill-fated
Dark Blood (which would remain unfinished after the lead, River Phoenix, died from an overdose mid-shoot). His proper US debut came the following year with
The Vanishing, a by-the-numbers remake of Spoorloos starring Kiefer Sutherland.
Tom Tykwer
Tykwer had not only kickstarted his own career with 1998's
Lola rennt (
Run, Lola, Run) but also his star Franka Potente (who would later star in
Blow and
The Bourne Identity), before setting his sights on
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (which the likes of Kubrick had dismissed as unfilmable).
Xavier Gens
Alexandra Aja's unexpected success with
Haute Tension brought French horror to the attention of Hollywood, resulting in
Frontičre(s)'s director Gens helming the troubled action movie
Hitman. As is common with big studio features these days, the project was dogged by interfering producers.
Géla Babluani
Géla Babluani made a deeply unnerving thriller back in 2005 called
13 Tzameti that showcased him as a unique storyteller. For some reason Hollywood feels its American audiences are incapabable of reading subtitles so hired Babluani to remake it, which will be released in 2010 as
13.
Dario Argento
Italian master filmmaker Argento had collaborated with horror director George A. Romero once before, on the zombie epic
Dawn of the Dead, so when they were offered the chance to co-direct a US adaptation of two Edgar Allen Poe's short stories (complete with FX by Tom Savini) it seemed to good to be true. It was... the resulting mess,
Due occhi diabolici (
Two Evil Eyes) was a boring mess and lacked the filmmaker's usual flair.
Ole Bornedal
Nattevagten, first released in 1995 by Denmark-born director Bornedal, was a suitably eerie piece about a law student who takes a night job in a morgue. Bornedal was sent to Hollywood soon after to remake the movie as the 1997 Ewan McGregor thriller
Nightwatch, which was a below-average thriller.
June 06, 2008, 03:32:37 PM
