Greg McLean | |
---|---|
![]() Greg McLean on the set of Wolf Creek 2 | |
Born | c. 1971 |
Occupation(s) | Director, writer, actor, producer |
Years active | 2001–present |
Greg McLean is an Australian film director, producer and writer, principally of horror films. He rose to fame in 2005 with his debut feature film, Wolf Creek , creating the character Mick Taylor (played by John Jarratt). The sequel to his first feature, Wolf Creek 2 was released February 2013. Mclean also wrote, directed and produced Rogue (2007) and was executive producer of Red Hill (2010) and Crawlspace (2012). He is also the co-author of two novels about Mick Taylor; Wolf Creek: Origin (with Aaron Sterns) and Wolf Creek: Desolation Game (with Brett McBean) and the four-part comic book series Dark Axis: Secret Battles of WW2 and the graphic novel Sebastian Hawks – Creature Hunter. In 2016, his film, The Darkness , was released, and a Wolf Creek TV series was released on Australian streaming service Stan.
After initially studying painting, Greg McLean attended the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), completing a graduate diploma in directing. [1]
In his early career he worked with theatre director Neil Armfield, and with Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin at Opera Australia.[ citation needed ]
McLean's first short film, Plead, won a Gold award from the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS). His short film ICQ screened at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, winning "Best Director of a Short Film". Under his production company GMF (Greg McLean Film), McLean produced television commercials and similar work.[ citation needed ]
McLean's first full-length film was the 2005 Australian independent horror film Wolf Creek. Reviews were mixed, but it achieved a cult following.[ citation needed ] In the United States, it received an NC-17 rating until being edited to obtain an R rating.[ citation needed ]
Mclean's next film Rogue , in 2007, was about a deadly salt-water crocodile attacking an international group of tourists in Australia's Northern Territory. [2] He was one of the candidates to direct Paranormal Activity 2 . [3] McLean produced the Justin Dix thriller Crawlspace . [4]
In February 2013, McLean returned as co-writer (with Aaron Sterns), producer and director for Wolf Creek 2, the sequel to Wolf Creek. John Jarratt reprised his role as serial killer Mick Taylor, and co-starred with Ryan Corr. [5]
After this success, McLean established the production company Emu Creek Pictures. [6] He then wrote, directed, and produced the thrillers The Darkness, The Belko Experiment, and Jungle. [7] He then executive produced and directed episodes of the Wolf Creek TV series as well as The Gloaming, Bloom, Jack Irish, La Brea, The Twelve and Scrublands. In 2024 he was series director for the Netflix series Territory. [8]
Recently, Greg joined fellow Australian director Patrick Hughes, along with screenwriter James Beaufort, in establishing the production company Huge Film. The action/sci-fi feature War Machine (Executive Produced by McLean) is the first project from this new entity. [9]
Year | Title | Director | Producer | Writer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2001 | ICQ | Yes | Yes | Yes | Short film |
2005 | Wolf Creek | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
2007 | Rogue | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
2013 | Wolf Creek 2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
2016 | The Darkness | Yes | Executive | Yes | |
The Belko Experiment | Yes | No | No | ||
2017 | Jungle | Yes | Yes | No | |
Executive producer
Acting roles
Year | Title | Role |
---|---|---|
2005 | Wolf Creek | Old Man's Body and Police Officer |
2015 | Tales of Halloween | Ray Bishop |
Year | Title | Director | Executive Producer | Writer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2016-17 | Wolf Creek | Yes | Yes | Yes | 3 episodes |
2020 | The Gloaming | Yes | No | No | 4 episodes [10] |
2021-23 | La Brea | Yes | No | No | 2 episodes |
The Others is an American science fiction television series created by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, and produced by Delusional Films, NBC Studios, and DreamWorks Television. It ran for thirteen 40-minute episodes from February 5, 2000, to June 10, 2000, airing on NBC. It concerned a group of people with various psychic talents as they encountered different, and often evil, paranormal forces. It was an ensemble series. It featured in the third attempt by NBC to air a Saturday night supernatural/paranormal programming block, joining The Pretender and Profiler as the Thrillogy, but all three shows were canceled by season's end.
Gregory Berlanti is an American screenwriter, producer and director of film and television. He is known for his work on the television series Dawson's Creek, Brothers & Sisters, Everwood, Political Animals, Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and You, in addition to his contributions to DC Comics on film and television productions, including The CW's Arrowverse, as well as Titans and Doom Patrol. In 2000, Berlanti founded the production company Berlanti Productions.
Michael Legge is a Massachusetts-born American B-movie filmmaker and actor. He is known for producing low-budget comedy-horror films that he writes, directs and generally stars in. He founded the production company Sideshow Cinema.
Bridget Neval also known as Bridget Phillips is a Canadian-Australian actress. She has been in various television programs including Wicked Science and is most famous for her portrayal of Lana Crawford in Neighbours.
Wolf Creek is a 2005 Australian horror film written, co-produced and directed by Greg McLean and starring John Jarratt, Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi. Its plot concerns three backpackers who find themselves taken captive and subsequently hunted by Mick Taylor, a sadistic, psychopathic, xenophobic serial killer, in the Australian outback. The film was ambiguously marketed as being "based on true events", while its plot bore elements reminiscent of the real-life murders of backpackers by Ivan Milat in the 1990s and Bradley Murdoch in 2001, both of which McLean used as inspiration for the screenplay.
John Jarratt is an Australian television film actor, producer and director and TV presenter who rose to fame through his work in the Australian New Wave. He has appeared in a number of film roles including Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Summer City (1977), The Odd Angry Shot (1979), We of the Never Never (1982), Next of Kin (1982), and Dark Age (1987). He portrayed the antagonist Mick Taylor in the Wolf Creek franchise. He voiced the protagonist's father, Jack Hunter, in an audio drama adaptation of The Phoenix Files. He is also known for his recurring role in the drama series McLeod's Daughters.
James Wong is an American television and film director, screenwriter and producer. He is known for co-writing episodes of the Fox science fiction supernatural drama series The X-Files with his writing partner, Glen Morgan. Morgan and Wong are founders of the Hard Eight Pictures and co-created Space: Above and Beyond. Wong also directed the films Final Destination (2000) and Final Destination 3 (2006) in the Final Destination film series, The One (2001), starring Jet Li, and Dragonball Evolution (2009).
Simon Montagu McBurney is an English actor, playwright, and theatre and opera director. He is the founder and artistic director of the Théâtre de Complicité, London. He has had roles in the films The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Friends with Money, The Last King of Scotland, The Golden Compass (2007), The Duchess (2008), Robin Hood, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Magic in the Moonlight, The Theory of Everything, and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015). He played Cecil the choirmaster in BBC's The Vicar of Dibley (1994–2004).
Alain Silver is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter; music producer; film critic, film historian, DVD commentator, author and editor of books and essays on film topics, especially film noir, the samurai film, and horror films. Filmmakers about whom he has written include David Lean, Robert Aldrich, Raymond Chandler, Roger Corman, and James Wong Howe.
David Lightfoot was an Australian film producer.
Storm Warning is a 2007 Australian horror film directed by Jamie Blanks and starring Nadia Farès and Robert Taylor.
Ozploitation films are exploitation films – a category of low-budget horror, comedy, sexploitation and action films – made in Australia after the introduction of the R rating in 1971. The year also marked the beginnings of the Australian New Wave movement, and the Ozploitation style peaked within the same time frame.
Cary Joji Fukunaga is an American filmmaker. He is known for directing critically acclaimed films such as the thriller Sin nombre (2009), the period drama Jane Eyre (2011), the war drama Beasts of No Nation (2015) and the 25th James Bond film, No Time to Die (2021). He also co-wrote the Stephen King adaptation It (2017). He was the first director of East Asian descent to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, as the director and executive producer of the first season of the HBO series True Detective (2014). He also directed and executive produced the Netflix limited series Maniac (2018), and executive produced and directed several episodes of the Apple TV+ miniseries Masters of the Air (2024).
Crawlspace is a 2012 Australian science fiction-action-horror film directed by Justin Dix. The script was co-written by Dix, co-star Eddie Baroo, and Adam Patrick Foster. A team of elite commandos are sent to a secret military base to extract a scientific team under attack by escaped prisoners. It was released on October 18, 2012 to largely negative reviews from critics.
Jason Ferus Blum is an American producer. He is founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, which has produced the horror franchises Paranormal Activity (2007–2021), Insidious (2010–2023), The Purge (2013–2021), and Halloween (2018-2022). Blum has also produced Sinister (2012), Oculus (2013), Whiplash (2014), The Gallows (2015), The Gift (2015), Hush (2016), Split (2016), Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016), Get Out (2017), Happy Death Day (2017), Upgrade (2018), Us (2019), The Invisible Man (2020), Freaky (2020), The Black Phone (2021), M3GAN (2022), and Five Nights at Freddy's (2023).
Chloé Boreham, is a Franco-Australian actress. She is best known for the leading role as detective Bridget Anderson on the Channel 7 television drama The Killing Field.
Wolf Creek 2 is a 2013 Australian horror film co-written and directed by Greg McLean. The film is a sequel to the 2005 film Wolf Creek and stars John Jarratt, reprising his role as Mick Taylor. It was released on 30 August 2013 at the Venice Film Festival, then released in Australia on 20 February 2014.
Wolf Creek is an Australian horror television series which screens on Stan. The series is a spin-off of the movies Wolf Creek and Wolf Creek 2. John Jarratt, who portrayed Mick Taylor in the films, reprises his role for the show.
Helen Louise Leake is an Australian film producer, who was CEO of the South Australian Film Corporation from 2004 to 2007.