PAUL W. S. ANDERSON

'Paul William Scott Anderson' (born March 4, 1965 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England) is a film director who regularly works in sci-fi movies and video game adaptations.

Contents

Biography

Personal life

Career

Personal life

Production relations

Filmography

Filmography

Upcoming Projects

Criticisms

Other disputes

References

External links

Biography

Personal life

In April 2007, it was announced that he and actress Milla Jovovich are expecting a baby girl in November 2007. The two met when Anderson directed her in the first ''Resident Evil''. They were engaged in March 2003, but no wedding date has been set. ^[1]

Career

Anderson graduated from the University of Warwick as the youngest student to achieve an BA in Film & Literature. He made his debut as the writer-director of ''Shopping'', which starred Sean Pertwee, Jude Law and Sadie Frost as thieves who smashed cars into storefronts. When released in his native England, it was banned in some cinemas, and only came to the United States as an edited, direct to video release.
After this, he directed the successful 1995 video game adaptation ''Mortal Kombat''. While prior video game movies, like ''Street Fighter'' and ''Super Mario Bros.'', had been all-out disasters, ''Mortal Kombat'' was well received by fans, and some critics. He declined to direct the sequel, '' which was not well received by critics or fans. Anderson was asked to direct a third movie, '', but declined again.
The success of ''Mortal Kombat'' gave Anderson free reign to choose his next project, ''Soldier'', written by ''Blade Runner'' screenwriter David Webb Peoples. Intended as a Sidequel to ''Blade Runner'', the movie was set in the same universe (but not the same planet), and contained numerous references to ''Blade Runner''. Kurt Russell was attached to star, but was unavailable at the time, which delayed the production. In the meantime, Anderson made ''Event Horizon'', which took the premise of the classic sci-fi novel and film ''Solaris'', but filled it with ''Hellraiser''-style horror scenes. The film was poorly received at the box office, and Anderson blamed the failure on studio-enforced cuts. While not a box-office success, the film gained a small cult following.
''Soldier'' was eventually completed and released in 1998, and was a disaster both commercially and critically.
After the poor performance of both ''Event Horizon'' and ''Soldier'', Anderson was forced to think smaller. His planned remake of the cult film ''Death Race 2000'' was put on hold, and he set about writing and directed a TV movie, ''The Sight'', in 2000. It was a minor success, and Anderson returned the cinema screens in 2002 when he wrote and directed an adaptation of the survival horror series ''Resident Evil''. It was at this point that, to avoid confusion to American auteur Paul Thomas Anderson, he began to credit himself as "Paul W. S. Anderson."
Working with a moderate budget in comparison to his other movies, ''Resident Evil'' was a commercial success in cinemas and on DVD , prompting Anderson to write (but not direct) the sequels, '' and ''.
Anderson's next project was the much-anticipated ''Alien vs. Predator'', a concept popularized by a series of Dark Horse Comics and later hinted at in ''Predator 2''. A movie version had been stuck in development for years despite the franchise crossing into every other form of media, from books to comics to video games. The fact ''Alien vs. Predator'' was being made at all was enough to get many fans of the originals onboard from the second the project was greenlighted. Some, however, were unhappy with the choice of Anderson as the writer and director, and had the opposite reaction, writing it off as a failure before it had even entered production.

Personal life

In April 2007, it was announced that he and actress Milla Jovovich are expecting a baby girl in November 2007. The two met when Anderson directed her in the first ''Resident Evil''. They were engaged in March 2003, but no wedding date has been set. ^[1]

Production relations

★ Anderson has cast actor Jason Isaacs several times, appearing in ''Shopping'', ''Event Horizon'', ''Soldier'', and ''Resident Evil''. In ''Resident Evil'', he has both a voice over at the beginning and appears as a masked doctor at the end of the movie. The character of Dr. Isaacs (played by Iain Glen) from the end of ''Resident Evil: Apocalypse'' is named after him.

★ Colin Salmon appeared in both ''Resident Evil'' and ''AVP: Alien Vs. Predator''. Colin had previously been featured in the James Bond movies Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is not Enough (and later in Die Another Day). On the commentary for Resident Evil (made during Pierce Brosnan's tenure as Bond) Anderson mentioned that "he [Salmon] should play Bond".

★ David Webb Peoples, the screenwriter of ''Soldier'', was one of two screenwriters for Blade Runner. The movies are set in the same universe (but on different planets).

★ Lance Henriksen who portrayed the android, ''Bishop'', in Aliens and Alien 3 also portrayed the character of Weyland (founder of Weyland-Yutani) in ''AVP: Alien vs. Predator''. It is also revealed that Weylands middle name is "Bishop".

★ Up until ''Resident Evil'', Anderson had always attempted to give his producer/colleague Jeremy Bolt a cameo in his movies, but could not due to Bolt's stiffness on camera. As revealed by the commentary for Resident Evil, Bolt appears three times during the film, twice as a zombie and once as a masked Umbrella scientist. Bolt's sister appears as the drowned scientist and his girlfriend played the zombie who bites Kaplan's leg.

★ Anderson was a producer on '', which is based on a fighting game. It features a bit role by Robin Shou who previously played the lead role, Liu Kang, in Anderson's ''Mortal Kombat'' (also based on a fighting game). Also, Linden Ashby, who played Johnny Cage, is due to appear in ''.

Filmography

Filmography

Film	Role	Year	Notes
Grove Music	Production assistant	1981
Shopping	Director, Writer	1994	Direct to Film, Directional Debut
Mortal Kombat	Director	1995
Event Horizon	Director	1997
Soldier	Director	1998	Last Cinema Movie
The Sight	Director, Writer	2000	Tv Movie
The Glow	Director	2002	Tv Movie
Resident Evil	Direction, Producer, Writer	2002	Cinema Return, Script Approved over George Romero's Draft
Alien vs. Predator	Direction, Writer	2004	Child hood dream
	Producer, Writer	2004
The Dark	Producer	2005
	Producer	2006
	Producer, Writer	2007

Upcoming Projects

★ ''Man with the Football'' (2008)

★ ''Death Race'' (2008)

★ ''Castlevania'' (2008)

★ ''The Long Good Friday'' (2008)

★ ''Necropolis'' (2009)
Anderson wrote the third and final movie in the ''Resident Evil''-film series, , due to be released in the fall of 2007. He is currently expected to write and produce the upcoming ''Castlevania'' movie.
He is also working on other non-video game related films such as ''Necropolis'', ''Man with the Football'' and ''Deathrace 3000''.
It was recently announced that Anderson will direct a remake of the 1980 British gangster film ''The Long Good Friday''. The London setting of the original will now be updated to Miami.

Criticisms

Starting from the 1998 movie-flop ''Soldier'' (a type of "sidequel" to ''Blade Runner'') a backlash started towards Anderson which remains to this day. Other films like ''Resident Evil'', '', and ''Alien vs. Predator'' also received large amounts of initial criticism, although these films turned fair profit. Anderson remains to be harassed by an extremely vocal group of fans yet some feel that he has fallen victim to an extreme form of hyperbole.

Other disputes

Anderson has developed such a negative reputation among some that, as an April Fool's joke, a J. R. R. Tolkien fansite www.theonering.net "revealed" that Anderson would direct an adaptation of ''The Hobbit'' after Peter Jackson's ''The Lord of the Rings'' movies had finished. This was met with widespread horror from wary Tolkien fans.
Screenwriter Peter Briggs, who had penned the very first ''Alien vs. Predator'' screenplay, disputed some of Anderson's other comments in an online interview, saying Anderson's claim that Briggs' original screenplay was "locked down" was incorrect, and that many elements of Anderson's screenplay were suspiciously similar. ^[3]

References

1. Milla Jovovich, Paul Anderson Expecting a Baby Emily Fromm
2. Milla Jovovich, Paul Anderson Expecting a Baby Emily Fromm
3. http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/2432

External links

★

★ Paul W. S. Anderson at Rottentomatoes.com

★ Paul W. S. Anderson interview at JoBlo.com