Alethea Jones | |
|---|---|
 Jones at Tropfest 2012 in Sydney, Australia | |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, producer, screenwriter |
| Known for | Lemonade Stand (2012) Fun Mom Dinner (2017) |
Alethea Jones is an Australian film and television director. She is best known for her films Lemonade Stand (2012) and Fun Mom Dinner (2017), and the TV series Queen America .
Jones's first short film, When the Wind Changes (which she directed and edited), premiered at the 2010 Melbourne International Film Festival and in 2011 won the prestigious Inside Film (IF) Award for Best Short Film as well as the Most Popular Film Award at Flickerfest and Best Comedy and People's Choice awards at the St Kilda Film Festival. [1]
Her big break was directing the short film Lemonade Stand, which won first prize at the 2012 Tropfest Film Festival. Tropfest founder and director, John Polson said: "Lemonade Stand is an incredibly well made film and a favourite amongst the judges. There was intense discussion in the judging room, and some really interesting debates. Alethea should be very proud to have been selected by some of the industry's greatest talent." [2]
Her first feature film was Fun Mom Dinner , starring Toni Collette, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon, Adam Scott, and Adam Levine. The film had its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, [3]
In August 2017, it was announced that Jones would develop and direct the live action Barbie film, starring Anne Hathaway based on a script from Olivia Milch and produced by Sony. [4] [5] In October 2018, Sony lost the rights to the film and it moved across to Warner Brothers with Margot Robbie to star. [6] A new creative team was assembled with the studio change and Hathaway, Jones and Milch did not go across for contractual reasons. [7] Jones is also attached to direct the period musical Big Gay Jamboree, to be produced by LuckyChap Entertainment, from a script being written by Maria Mindelle and Jonathan Parks-Ramage. [8] [9] In October 2022, Jones was announced as the producer and first episode director of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies on streaming service Paramount+. [10]
Jones grew up in Northern New South Wales, Australia and graduated from the Victorian College of Arts in 2007.
She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, Emmy-award nominated sound designer PK Hooker. [13] [14]
| Year | Film and television | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | When the Wind Changes | Short Film | |
| 2011 | Cop Hard | TV series (5 episodes) | |
| 2012 | Lemonade Stand | Short Film | |
| 2013 | The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting | TV Mini-Series (3 episodes) | |
| 2015 | A History of Radness | TV movie | |
| 2017 | Fun Mom Dinner | Film | |
| 2018 | Wrecked | TV series (2 episodes) | |
| American Woman | TV series (1 episode) | ||
| 2018-19 | Queen America | TV series (10 episodes) | |
| 2019 | Dollface | TV series (2 episodes) | |
| Lodge 49 | TV series (guest director) | ||
| 2020 | Dispatches from Elsewhere | TV series (1 episode) | |
| 2021 | Made for Love | TV series (2 episodes) | |
| 2023 | Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies | 3 episodes; also executive producer | |
| Mrs. Davis | 3 episodes; also executive producer | ||
| 2024 | High Potential | Director; also executive producer | [15] |
| 2025 | Peacemaker | Director (season 2) |
Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival. It has also become known as the world's first global film festival.
David Sanford Milch is an American writer and producer of television series. He has created several television shows, including ABC's NYPD Blue (1993–2005), co-created with Steven Bochco, and HBO's Deadwood.
Margot Elise Robbie is an Australian actress and producer. Her work includes both blockbuster and independent films, and her accolades include nominations for three Academy Awards, six BAFTA Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2017, and Forbes named her the world's highest-paid actress in 2023.
Ocean's is a series of heist films. Beginning with the 1960 Rat Pack film Ocean's 11, the series has seen mixed to favorable critical reception and substantial commercial success. After the 1960 film, a trilogy was released from 2001 to 2007, often cited as defining its genre and leading to a proliferation and commercialization of heist films throughout the world. The most commercially successful was the first film, Ocean's Eleven (2001). It established the ensemble cast of George Clooney as Danny Ocean, Matt Damon as Linus Caldwell, and Brad Pitt as Rusty Ryan. A long list of supporting cast members maintain the trilogy. The first sequel, Ocean's Twelve, was released in 2004, with the final film, Ocean's Thirteen, following in 2007. An all-female spin-off titled Ocean's 8 was released in 2018.
Kathryn Aselton is an American actress, film director and producer. She directed and co-starred in The Freebie, which was shown in the non-competition "Next" category at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. She also starred in the FX sitcom The League for its seven-season run from 2009 to 2015, and in the first two seasons of FX's Marvel Comics X-Men drama Legion.
Australians in Film (AiF) is a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization that serves the Australian community working in the film and television industry. It awards the annual Heath Ledger Scholarship to emerging Australian actors, as well as several other programs which help actors and filmmakers to develop their careers.
Emerald Lilly Fennell is an English actress, filmmaker, and writer. She has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards.
Scott Takeda is an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He is known for his recurring roles on the soap operas Days of Our Lives and General Hospital, and for appearances in films such as Everything Must Go (2010), Dallas Buyers Club (2013), Gone Girl (2014), Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016), The Space Between Us (2017), and The Tale (2018).
Christina Hodson is an English screenwriter. She is best known for writing the films Bumblebee (2018), Birds of Prey (2020), and The Flash (2023). Her screenplay Shut In appeared on the 2012 edition of the Black List, an annual list of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays, but the resulting film released in 2016 was critically panned. Another of her screenplays, The Eden Project, was picked up by Sony Pictures in 2014.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a 2016 American biographical war comedy-drama film, directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa and written by Robert Carlock. It is based on the memoir The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Kim Barker. The film stars Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, and Billy Bob Thornton. It was released on March 4, 2016, by Paramount Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics who praised the acting but criticized the predictable screenplay and execution. The movie grossed $24.9 million against its $35 million budget.
Fun Mom Dinner is a 2017 American comedy film directed by Alethea Jones, from a screenplay by Julie Rudd. It stars Katie Aselton, Toni Collette, Bridget Everett, Molly Shannon, Adam Scott, and Adam Levine.
Carly Ann Wray is an American television writer and producer. She is known for her writing on the AMC drama Mad Men and The Leftovers on HBO. She won a Writers Guild of America Award for Dramatic Series for Mad Men in 2016, and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series along with the producing staff of Westworld in 2018.
Mattel Films is the film production division of Mattel originally formed on October 16, 2013, as Mattel Playground Productions as part of Mattel Global Brands, a unified media structural and strategy unit.
LuckyChap Entertainment Limited is a British-American production company based in Los Angeles and Bromsgrove, founded in 2014 by Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr. The company describes their focal point as female-focused film and television productions.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is an American musical romantic comedy drama television series that was created by Annabel Oakes for Paramount+. The series is a prequel to the film Grease (1978), based on the stage musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. It aired from April 6, 2023 to June 1, 2023 on Paramount+. The series was canceled later that month and removed from Paramount+.
Margot Robbie is an Australian actress and producer. She made her film debut in the 2008 film Vigilante. Robbie then landed a role on the long-running Australian soap opera Neighbours. From 2011 until its cancellation in 2012, she portrayed a stewardess on the television series Pan Am. Her breakout role was in the Martin Scorsese-directed The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2015, she acted alongside Will Smith in the comedy-drama Focus. In the following year, Robbie played Harley Quinn in the DC Extended Universe film Suicide Squad, later reprising the role in Birds of Prey (2020) and The Suicide Squad (2021). Also in 2016, she played Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan. That year she also hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live.
Maid is an American drama limited series created for Netflix by Molly Smith Metzler. The series is inspired by Stephanie Land's memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive. Its story focuses on a young mother who escapes an abusive relationship and struggles to provide for her daughter by getting a job cleaning houses. It premiered on Netflix on October 1, 2021.
Ariana Greenblatt is an American actress. Her first starring role was in the Disney Channel comedy series Stuck in the Middle (2016–2018). Other early roles included the comedy film A Bad Moms Christmas (2017), the Marvel film Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and the musical film In the Heights (2021). She rose to greater prominence with the science-fiction film 65, the comedy film Barbie, and the space opera television series Ahsoka, which were all released in 2023. For Barbie, she received nominations at the Critics' Choice and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Thomas Francis Michael Ackerley is an English producer, actor, and former assistant director. He co-founded the production company LuckyChap Entertainment with his wife Margot Robbie. Together they have produced several films and television series, including the critically acclaimed films I, Tonya (2017), Promising Young Woman (2020), and Barbie (2023). For the latter, he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2024.
Barbie is a 2023 fantasy comedy film directed by Greta Gerwig from a screenplay she wrote with Noah Baumbach. Based on the Barbie fashion dolls by Mattel, it is the first live-action Barbie film after numerous animated films and specials. Starring Margot Robbie as the title character and Ryan Gosling as Ken, the film follows them on a journey of self-discovery through Barbieland and the real world following an existential crisis. The supporting cast includes America Ferrera, Michael Cera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, and Will Ferrell.